Two Cases of Pneumonia with Thrombosis in the Brain, Having a Bearing on the Pathogenesis of Remote Pneumococcal Complications in Pneumonia

Pneumococcal affections of organs other than the lungs are often found complicating pneumonia. The occurrence of some of these ?complications like empyema, pericarditis, etc., can be easily explained by direct spread of the inflammatory process to the neighbouring structures. But the pathogenesis of the afflection of remote organs like the brain and meninges, joints, cardiac valves, etc., has always been a moot point in the pathology of pneumonia. MacCallum seems to have eluded the point by saying that " these are the accompaniments of bacteremia which may occur in the most severe cases towards the fatal termination of the. disease (Cole)." Price accepts it as conclusively proved that pneumonia is a septicaemia with predominating pulmonary involvement; while Jockmann believes that bacteremia is a frequent occurrence in pneumonia and can be demonstrated as such in a large percentage of