THE BACTERIOLOGY OF THE BLOOD IN EARLY LIFE

Medical literature is full of reports of the bacteriologic examinations of the blood in adults, and much valuable information has been obtained therefrom. Various infections have been studied in this way: typhoid, pneumonia, endocarditis, erysipelas, osteomyelitis, and many of the obscure febrile cases so frequently seen in our hospital wards. But while much work of this nature has been done among adults, we find comparatively few reports on this subject among infants and children. In scarlet fever alone have bacteriologic examinations of the blood been made to any extent. Study of this infection by Jochmann, 1 Baginsky, Slavyk, 2 Hektoen 3 and others, has shown the presence of a streptococcus, apparently identical in its characteristics with the streptococcus erysipelatis. Thus, Jochmann, studying 161 cases of scarlet fever, found the streptococcus twenty-five times. All of these patients died, and Jochmann, from analysis of his own cases and those of other authors,