HOW was meningitis discovered?
Meningitis was first described in the 1020s in Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine, and again more accurately by Avenzoar of al-Andalus in the 12th century. Symptoms of the disease were also noted in 1805 by the Swiss Gabinetto Vieusseux (a scientific-literary association) during an outbreak in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1887, Dr. Anton Weichselbaum (1845-1920) of Vienna became the first to isolate the specific germ, meningococcus.
