A PNEUMOGRAPHIC STUDY OF RESPIRATORY IRREGULARITIES IN MENINGITIS

It has long been common knowledge that irregularities in respiratory, rhythm were occasionally to be seen in meningitis. In general, however, these respiratory irregularities have been regarded as of much less frequent occurrence and as of much less diagnostic significance than irregularities of the pulse and heart action. In most writings on the subject of meningitis, these respiratory symptoms are either not mentioned at all or are referred to only briefly and casually, the usual statement being that the Cheyne-Stokes type of breathing is sometimes seen toward the end of the disease. By certain of the earlier writers, however, especially among the French, the disturbances of respiration were recognized as of common occurrence and were described at some length. Biot,¹ in 1878, writing on the subject of Cheyne-Stokes breathing, devotes several pages to quotations from various authors, which show that they regarded the disturbances of