PULMONARY ABSCESS AND PULMONARY GANGRENE

Abstract

In the past ten years at Mount Sinai Hospital (two hundred and seventy beds), fifty-five cases of pulmonary spirochetosis, better designated Miller-Vincent's infection of the lung, including thirty-nine cases of pulmonary gangrene, have been observed, as well as twelve cases of bronchogenic pulmonary abscess and twenty-three cases of embolic pulmonary abscesses. The embolic pulmonary abscesses were associated with areas of suppuration elsewhere in the body and were manifestations of generalized pyemia or bacteremia. Of the local bronchogenic pulmonary lesions, gangrene was observed more than three times as frequently as abscess. Although all the cases presented clinically the picture of so-called typical abscess of the lung, they were usually readily recognized by distinguishing characteristics as cases of gangrene and abscess, respectively. Of the thirty-nine cases of gangrene, thirty-two were in adults and seven in children. Of the twelve cases of bronchogenic abscess eight were in children and four in adults. Twenty-two