The complications of hypotension and shock have been reported several times in a few patients with bacteremia.* However, most reports on shock and bacteremia have given little emphasis to their association. Hypotension is frequent in typhoid fever, peritonitis, cholera, bacillary dysentery, gas gangrene, diphtheria, meningococcemia, and several rickettsial diseases. Various factors such as prostration, dehydration, fever, cardiac failure, and adrenal insufficiency have been assumed to be responsible for the hypotension, but the precise mechanism of shock in infections is far from clear.3 The hypotension that accompanies bacteremia often goes unrecognized because the signs and symptoms of bacteremia do not suggest its presence. The patient often is alert and at first may have suffused, warm, dry skin. Moreover, signs of shock such as weakness, thirst, sweating, tachycardia, and lethargy may be attributed to the infection per se. One must be alert to detect hypotension during infection, and infection may be