Infantile Diarrhea

IN SPITE of high prevalence, the etiology of infantile diarrhea often remains somewhat obscure. Fewer than one half of infants developing acute enteritis yield enterobacteriaceae of pathogenic significance. A significant fraction yields viruses, but the etiological significance of these agents has yet to be established as primarily responsible for the clinical manifestations of disease. Studies reported in the literature 1-9 are often at variance; excepting for studies of several enteroviruses in isolated outbreaks such as echovirus 18, 6 others have generally failed to provide convincing evidence of association between the virus and the disease. Therefore, we restudied the frequency of encountering viruses in diarrhea among infants and young children seen at the University of Kansas Medical Center. In this study a fairly comprehensive effort was made to recover viruses and to follow antibody responses in infants yielding viral agents. Materials and Methods Description of Diarrheal and Control Subjects. —This