Treatment of Subacute Infective Endocarditis With Heparin and Chemotherapy

The incidence of bacterial endocarditis in rheumatic heart disease has been reported by various workers to be between 4 and 17 per cent, while in congenital heart disease it is between 14 and 22 per cent. The condition has been regarded by most physicians as uniformly fatal, though undoubtedly some mild and a few severe cases occasionally recover as Libman (1934) and Hamman (1937) have pointed out. By examining only reported series of cases of infective endocarditis treated by non-specific means, Lichtman and Bierman (1941) found that 6 out of 634 had undergone spontaneous cure. There are also reports of small epidemics of apparently proven cases in which the recovery rate has been high Since the introduction of the sulphonamide drugs, there have been many reported cures and consequently a great revival of interest in the diag- nosis and treatment of this condition. Having observed the successful cases reported by