The Hematology of Subacute Streptococcus Viridans Endocarditis

The clinical picture of subacute bacterial endocarditis has become familiar, but help is still needed in distinguishing the subacute from the acute forms, and the diagnosis of the bacterial type is still dependent on blood culture. To these ends it would seem that the interesting blood changes which occur in this disease should be of help; unfortunately, there are but few satisfactory data available. In the older literature, including the standard works on hematology,1no distinctions between the various bacterial types of endocarditis were drawn. After subacute bacterial endocarditis became firmly established as a clinical entity, many references to the blood were made but no grouping according to the bacteriology. The figures given by Simon2and by Gulland and Goodall3are of this type, while the two leading continental hematologists, Jolly4and Naegeli,5scarcely mention the matter in their most recent editions. In the current