Margaret A. Salvatore

Clinical rubella with arthritis resulting from reinfection.

Abstract A 50-year-old woman with a history of clinical rubella and corroborating serologic evidence of this previous experience was inadventently exposed to Brown strain rubella virus in a control...

The peripheral white blood count in respirovirus infection

The peripheral white blood counts and differentials of 246 infants and children with lower respiratory disease and 96 asymptomatic patients with similar viral infections were analyzed and compared. The median white blood count (WBC) for patients with lower respiratory disease was 14,465 per cubic millimeter. The median WBC for the asymptomatic group was 9,000 per cubic millimeter. Patients with lower respiratory disease had significantly more immature forms than asymptomatic patients. Differences in segmented neutrophils and lymphocytes were not as great. The degree of leukocytosis in patients with lower respiratory disease was not influenced by day of disease, age, or specific viral, etiologic agents. These data indicate that leukocytosis may also be associated with viral disease of the lower respiratory tract and that “infection” alone is insufficient to call forth the response. It is recommended that the classic concepts concerning the leukocytic response to infection be modified.