Word: wilkowski
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Fortnight ago. Seaman Recruit Joseph Wilkowski reported to sick bay at the San Diego Naval Training Center. From his symptoms-including stiff neck and a rash-the medics decided they were up against meningitis, inflammation of the protective sheathing of the spinal cord and brain. And among the many microbes that can cause meningitis, they identified the cause of Wilkowski's illness as the meningococcus...
...meningitis used to be fatal in 70% of cases. But now the Navy doctors had no need to panic. It was at this same San Diego base 20 years ago that sulfa drugs had proved an almost sure cure for meningococcal meningitis and, no less important, a superb preventive. Wilkowski, severely ill, had to have sulfadiazine intravenously, so he got penicillin as well. All 80 men in his company were ordered to take sulfadiazine tablets twice a day for three days...
Though many people regularly carry meningococci in their throats without getting sick, no one knows why spinal or brain disease appears, especially in springtime, in an unpredictable pattern. Only one other man in Wilkowski's company got meningitis, but so did three others in companies widely scattered over the huge base. And one of these, James S. Hale, 22, of Osborne, Kans., fell victim to a furiously progressive form of the disease, reminiscent of the old-fashioned epidemics. It was 5:30 p.m. when Hale went to sick bay, and after a spinal tap he was rushed...
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