In the past two years seven cases of mastoiditis in infants under 2 months of age have come under our observation. Reports of similar cases have been rather frequent in recent years, so they of necessity bear a marked similarity to our reports, but we hope by additional observation not only to substantiate what others have reported but to prove that encapsulated pus in the mastoid antrums of infants can cause a general metabolic disturbance, and that if drainage is instituted in time this toxemia can be corrected.
It was duVerney1 of Paris, who, in 1684, during the reign of the Great Louis, left the first record of pathology. His record was a report of postmortem observations; it is only a few lines telling of extraneous material in the middle ear and mastoid. Tröltsch,2 who began to write in the late 1850's, knew of du Verney's observations and