INTESTINAL INFECTIONS IN INFANTS AND IN CHILDREN—1930 AND 1931 SERIES

In the late summer and autumn, numbers of infants whose complaint is usually diagnosed clinically as "acute intestinal intoxication" are admitted to the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. The mortality among these sufferers is high. Divergent views held in various places concerning the etiology stimulated the commencement of an investigation into the cause or causes that produce the symptom complex thus designated. This intensive survey was begun in October, 1928, and has continued up to the present. The report of the first part of the survey has been published.

The failure to find bacteria of generally accepted pathogenicity in at least 42 of the 172 cases of the 1928-1929 series of cases indicated the necessity for further and more intensive investigation. The finding of agglutinins in the serum of a patient whose stool culture had yielded no important bacterial species was good evidence that the significant organism was being "missed"