Therapeutic Experiences with Subacute Bacterial Endocarditis

SUBACUTE bacterial endocarditis, until recently an almost uniformly fatal disease, now carries a mortality not unlike that of untreated bacterial pneumonia, about 30 per cent. Reports during the past five or six years have stressed the uniformly striking results achieved through the use of antibiotics. One such paper1 emanating from the Massachusetts General Hospital related the experiences at that institution during the three-year period 1944–1946. Forty-four patients were treated, and of these 29 recovered,§ an incidence of 66 per cent. Actually, 6 of the failures should properly have been omitted from the series in that the patients received wholly inadequate . . .