Neisseria cinerea is an organism that has only recently been implicated as a human pathogen. In this case, N. cinerea was identified as the cause of ophthalmia neonatorum (conjunctivitis) in a 2-day-old girl.

Ninety consecutively seen babies with eye discharge in the first three weeks of life were examined. Four babies had "sticky eyes" with no evidence of ophthalmia and had uniformly negative cultures and test results for antichlamydial antibody; these babies were excluded. Of the 86 babies with ophthalmia neonatorum, Neisseria gonorrhoeae was isolated from eight, Chlamydia trachomatis from 44, oth...

Although the administration of sulfanilamide has led to spectacular improvement in infections due to Neisseria gonorrheae, only Hageman' thus far has mentioned its use in gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum. The present report includes four cases, in addition to the details of the case referred to by Hageman. Besides the drug, these infants have received auxiliary treatment locally of saline or bo...

(1) Purulent conjunctivitis affecting newborn babies is not invariably due to the gonococcus but may be caused by streptococci, staphylococci, or even B. coli and B. proteus. (2) Blindness from this cause in England has been reduced from approximately 25 per cent. of all blind children in 1920 to 9 per cent. in 1940. (3) This improvement began when the use of the Crede method of prophylaxis wit...

The use of silver nitrate as prophylaxis for neonatal ophthalmia was instituted in the late 1800s to prevent the devastating effects of neonatal ocular infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae. At that time - during the preantibiotic era - many countries made such prophylaxis mandatory by law. Today, neonatal gonococcal ophthalmia is rare in Canada, but ocular prophylaxis for this condition remains...

Ophthalmia neonatorum is a form of conjunctivitis occurring in infants younger than 4 weeks. It can be a leading cause of blindness in newborns. In this random clinical case-control study, ophthalmia neonatorum was investigated in one university centre. In this study, prophylactic effect of normal saline and ophthalmic erythromycin was compared with a group not receiving any prophylaxis. The fi...