Hemophilus Influenzae in Respiratory Infections

Abstract

The role played by Hemophilus influenzae in respiratory infections is poorly understood. In contrast to the single type usually identified in cerebrospinal fluid of acute meningitis, the strains isolated from the respiratory tract during acute infection constitute a heterogeneous group, few of which are typable by antisera prepared against the known types (a-f of Pittman's classification).¹Both the typability¹and the pathogenicity²appear to be related to the presence of specific capsular antigens. The success, in recent years, of fluorescent antibody techniques in diagnostic bacteriology and serology³suggested the possible application of these new methods to the evaluation of the role of H. influenzae in respiratory infections. Page, Caldroney, and Stulberg⁴reported demonstration, by immunofluorescence, of Type b H. influenzae in the spinal fluid from children with meningitis. The technique has also been used to study the bacteriologically related pertussis organism.^5,6Since antibodies can