Antibiotics, Staphylococcal Enteritis and Pseudomembranous Enterocolitis

Ever since the broad-spectrum antibiotics gained wide acceptance, there has been much concern about the gastrointestinal complications that accompany their administration. Although nausea, vomiting, frequent or bulky stools and diarrhea have been accepted as unavoidable and annoying, and have sometimes made it necessary to discontinue treatment, they have not been considered serious. Recently, however, some of the diarrheas have proved to be unusually severe, intractable and accompanied by shock and dehydration; they have also been contributing factors, if not the actual cause, in some deaths. The staphylococcus has been implicated in some of these cases; in others the antibiotics have . . .