From a retrospective scrutiny of 500 consecutive case records, which related to patients with empyema thoracis, over a 13-year period in a relatively closed community of one and a half million in the south-east region of Scotland (le Roux, 1965), it emerged that, in 50% of patients, empyema was related to non-specific pulmonary infection for which a persisting cause was not found, and that this...
