Because of the relatively small number of reports in the medical literature of acute bacterial endocarditis in infancy, it has been thought worth while to report the following case, especially as we have been unable to find a similar previously reported case in which chemotherapy has been employed.
It is now a commonly accepted fact that acute bacterial endocarditis in infancy is a rare disease. The only dissenting opinion seems to be that of Loffredo,1 who believes that its rarity is due only to failure in diagnosis. Sansby and Larson2 made a comprehensive review of the literature in 1930, and since then the occurrence of the disease has been infrequent.
Vecchi3 reviewed 1,060 records of autopsies of children 1 to 10 years of age at the Institute of Pathology and Anatomy at Florence, Italy, and found but 12 cases of acute vegetative endocarditis. We do not know