MENINGOENCEPHALITIS COMPLICATING HERPES ZOSTER OPHTHALMICUS AFTER TREATMENT BY VACCINATION

Abstract

SEVERAL investigators have given as explanation of the encephalitis following vaccination and the exanthems the theory of the activation of a latent virus by the vaccination or the exanthem. Van Bastiaanse and co-workers¹ expressed the opinion that the postvaccinal encephalitis occurring in the Netherlands was the result of rousing to active manifestation an encephalitis existing previously in the latent stage. They stated the belief that the virus involved was that of epidemic encephalitis. Netter,² Kraus,³ Demme⁴ and Pette⁵ also favored this idea. The members of the Committee on Vaccination, Great Britain, with one exception, held this opinion; they stated in 1928:⁶ "It is not altogether improbable that vaccination may here and there have precipitated an encephalitis in a person harbouring another virus." Ledingham⁷ wrote: ... Till further notice I take the view that postvaccinal encephalitis is more probably the result of activation of some