Meningitis Due to Mima Polymorpha

Although meningococcal meningitis is not usually difficult to diagnose, a similar clinical and pathological picture may sometimes be produced by organisms other than Neisseria meningitidis.4This point was demonstrated to us recently by a patient with meningitis due to Mima polymorpha. M. polymorpha is a species of the tribe Mimeae, which was named by De Bord,1in 1939, because this unusual group of Gramnegative bacilli closely mimicked neisseriae. Later, De Bord noted the presence of M. polymorpha in both normal and inflamed vaginae.2,3In 1945, Deacon5recovered this bacillus from war wounds, a chancroid lesion, brain tissue after head injury, and cases of resistant gonorrhea in the male. Thereafter, De Bord,6and subsequently Townsend et al.7described patients with M. polymorpha meningitis. A closely related organism was cultured from the meninges at autopsy in Schuldberg's case.4Subacute bacterial endocarditis,8septicemia,9and urinary tract infections 10 have also been caused