ON THE BEHAVIOR OF HEMOPHILUS INFLUENZAE IN CERTAIN DISEASES OF CHILDREN

Abstract

Studies of the respiratory bacteriology of children on a general and contagious pediatric service over a two-year period show that H. influenzae, a frequent inhabitant of normal throats, is seldom found in the nose in the absence of respiratory infection. However, a spread of H. influenzae to the nose may occur alike in "common colds" and in scarlet fever and pneumococcus type I pneumonia. Mucoid (fluorescent) variants were encountered infrequently in the respiratory tract, and it was not possible to correlate their occurrence with the type and severity of the disease. H. influenzae was isolated from the blood and spinal fluid of a child with meningitis, from the blood of 2 other children, and from the pleural effusion of a fourth. All strains isolated from sources remote from the upper respiratory tract were mucoid. Except in the case of the child with meningitis, it was difficult to determine whether these mucoid influenza bacilli were of importance in the clinical picture. However, these findings accord well with the observed superior viability of mucoid variants in the blood and tissues of experimental animals.