Diagnosis of pneumococcal meningitis

Acute pneumococcal meningitis runs the course of meningoencephalitis morphologically, and when the incidence of meningococcal meningitis is on the increase, this disease may well be mistaken for pneumococcal meningitis (two case reports of such misdiagnosis are presented) or stroke (one case is reported). An effective method for recognizing pneumococcal meningitis at an early stage is bacterioscopic examination of Gram-stained cerebrospinal-fluid smears.