question: could peritonitis cause meningitis which then caused encephalitis? my husband just recently had a heart valve replaced and the surgeon told me he had had peritonitis at some time. he had meningitis and encephalitis which they never found what caused the meningitis but said the meningitis caused the encephalitis that caused brain damage which caused loss of short term memory and a lot of reasoning power. Thank you for taking your time to answer me!!!