TREATMENT OF STAPHYLOCOCCIC PNEUMONIA AND EMPYEMA WITH PENICILLIN

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Abstract
DURING the winter of 1944-1945, we had the opportunity of observing and treating with penicillin 6 infants and children suffering from staphylococcic infections of the lungs and pleura. Five of the patients had empyema, and the sixth had pneumonia without empyema. The course of the infections in these patients under penicillin therapy was so strikingly different from that observed in previous years that a brief review of each case is indicated. Staphylococcic pneumonia constitutes a problem of major importance to the pediatrician. In the early stages, the differential diagnosis from pneumococcic pneumonia is extremely difficult. The disease is accompanied with a severe degree of toxemia, and, because of the tendency to form pulmonary abscesses rather close to the pleura, it is almost always complicated by empyema. These pulmonary abscesses also often involve small bronchi, and the bronchopleural fistulas produced thereby frequently give rise to a pyopneumothorax, which, if it is

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