Localized Encephalitis, Brain Abscess and Subdural Empyema 1945–1950

Abstract

REVOLUTIONARY change in the treatment of intracranial sepsis occurred during the second World War, when suppurating brain wounds were radically debrided by suction and closed without drainage. With the benefit first of the sulphonamides and later of penicillin primary healing occurred in a high percentage of cases. 2,21 This principle of primary closure of infected brain wounds was established by neurosurgeons at a time when delayed primary closure of war wounds of the extremities was mandatory. McKenzie, 16 in 1946, presented to the Toronto Academy of Medicine a study of 105 cases of brain abscess, treated over a period of ~0 years at the TABLE 1 Classification of intracranial sepsis 38 cases