Carl W. Norden

Staphylococcal Scalded-Skin Syndrome in an Adult

THE term staphylococcal scalded-skin syndrome has been proposed to cover a spectrum of clinical lesions including toxic epidermal necrolysis, bullous impetigo, and generalized scarlatiniform eruption.1 This syndrome may be reproduced in newborn mice by the injection of either live staphylococci2 of phage Group II or exfoliative toxin.2 , 3 In that model, exfoliation occurred only in animals under six days of age. The case presented below is unusual in that this syndrome occurred in a 19-year-old man from whom staphylococci of phage Group II, capable of producing exfoliative toxin, were isolated. Case Report A 19-year-old man had chronic membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis diagnosed 4 .xa0.xa0.

Haemophilus influenzae meningitis in an adult. A study of bactericidal antibodies and immunoglobulins.

Abstract Serum obtained on the day of admission and four days later failed to kill 3 × 103 Haemophilus influenzae, Type B, isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid of a 33-year-old woman with meningitis. Serum obtained on days 16, 30 and 60 was bactericidal for 3 × 106 organisms. No factors that might have contributed to the patients illness other than the lack of bactericidal antibody against H. influenzae, Type B, were detected. Bactericidal activity for the same organism was absent in eight of 29 normal adult serums. These results differ from studies performed in 1933, when all subjects over the age of 10 years who were tested showed bactericidal antibodies for this organism. The epidemiologic importance of the present findings in relation to current susceptibility of adults to infection with H. influenzae, Type B, remains to be determined.

Immunologic responses to Hemophilus influenzae meningitis.

Twenty-nine children with meningitis caused by H. influenzae , type b were studied for their hemagglutinating and bactericidal antibody responses. No antibody rises were observed in 22 (76 per cent), of whom 21 were under 2 years of age. Among 7 patients with fourfold or greater antibody titer increases, 6 were over 2 years of age. The mean age for antibody responders was 54 months while for nonresponders it was 11 months (p