“…Although much has been written about this gram-negative pathogen and the variety of clinical manifestations of meningococcal disease, little is known of the direct relationship between the physiology and the biochemistry of the microbe, on the one hand, and the pathogenesis of disease on the other. Previous reviews on the meningococcus and meningococcal disease have dealt primarily with epidemiology (17,22,32,185), pathology (134,142), physiology of the meningococcus (37,222,262), pathogenesis of the disease (19), leukocyte-endotoxin interactions (70), clinical studies (135,195,198), genetics (182), ecology of Neisseria (127), noncapsular surface antigens (97), and meningococcal vaccines (110,180). Although the subject of this review does not make it unique among those which have preceded it, with the information of recent years it is possible to take a fresh look at older ideas and a new look at more current ones.…”