CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM IN PNEUMONIA (NONSUPPURATIVE PNEUMONIC ENCEPHALITIS)

Abstract

THE CEREBRAL complications associated with pneumonia have received but scant attention in American literature, although numerous reports are available in many of the foreign journals (Bonaba, Marcos and de Agorio¹; Comby²; Bonaba, Boni and Barberouse³; de Filippi and Fernández⁴; Nové-Josserand and associates⁵; Gareiso and Sagreras⁶; Mollard and Dufourt⁷; Eschbach⁸; Stephan⁹; Comby¹⁰). Actually, such complications are not infrequent and may appear at the onset or at the height of the pneumonia or during convalescence, after the patient has become afebrile and appears well along the road to recovery. Cases often reveal a wide variability of symptoms, ranging from such generalized complaints as headache, vomiting, vertigo and lethargy to the more dramatic complications of coma, convulsions, delirium, monoplegia, hemiplegia, athetoses and psychic disturbances (Baker and Noran¹¹). The most common picture seen is that of acute meningoencephalitis. In many instances, after a