Tonsils and adenoids.

The bacteriology of acute tonsillitis and the normal flora of the throat in children is interesting and somewhat puzzling. Several studies (Box, Cleveland and Willard, 1961; Reilly et al, 1981; Toner et al, 1986) have shown that the culture of throat swabs taken from children with a history of acute tonsillitis does not differ, in terms of organisms cultured, from those taken from normal children. Box, Cleveland and Willard (1961), in a study of normal children and those with recurrent tonsillitis showed that a high proportion of normal children grow pathogenic organisms from throat swabs. In this series of normal children, 96% of swabs grew Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus), 50% grew Staphylococcus aureus, 30% grew Haemophilus and 5% grew a beta-haemolytic streptococcus. Similarly, a fair proportion of normal children (10% in a series from Moffett, Siegle and Doyle, 1968) will have viruses present in their throats and also anaerobic organisms (25% in the series of Reilly et al, 1981).