A CASE OF PURULENT PERICARDlTIS FOLLOWING ACUTE OSTEOMYELITIS

Frequency. Though not frequently met with clinically, the condition is not a rare one if the comparatively large group of cases which are demonstrated only in the post-mortem room is included. Thus Alexander' found only three cases of suppurative pericarditis in 31,016 hospital cases, though Stone2 noted 15 5 per cent. in 300 patients dead of pneumonia. Allbutt and Rolleston3 also stressed the frequency with which purulent pericarditis is overlooked in childhood until the post-mortem examination. Poynton4 investigating 100 autopsies on cases of purulent pericarditis found that only six of these had been diagnosed during life, and considered few conditions more difficult to detect. It is probable, however, that Osler5, in referring to it as the most commonly overlooked serious disease, had in mind the terminal pericarditis of chronic diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, chronic nephritis, etc.