Bacterial meningitis in children. Selected aspects.

Accumulating clinical experience has gradually outlined the epidemiology of acute bacterial meningitis, including the epidemic and the sporadic forms, the customary clinical signs related to different age groups and causative organisms, and methods of rapid diagnosis by laboratory examinations. Effective treatment, which continues to evolve, emerged in the 1940s with the development of antibacterial antimicrobials, first with the sulfonamides and then with the penicillins. The literature relative to these aspects of the disease has been abundant in the past few years. This article is directed to a variety of topics that have direct bearing on the disorder but are less often addressed to those who deal with infants and children.