Meningitis Due to Mima Polymorpha

Abstract

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.⁴ This 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,¹ in 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.^2,3 In 1945, Deacon ⁵ recovered this bacillus from war wounds, a chancroid lesion, brain tissue after head injury, and cases of resistant gonorrhea in the male. Thereafter, De Bord,⁶ and subsequently Townsend et al.⁷ described patients with M. polymorpha meningitis. A closely related organism was cultured from the meninges at autopsy in Schuldberg's case.⁴ Subacute bacterial endocarditis,⁸ septicemia,⁹ and urinary tract infections 10 have also been caused