Ophthalmia neonatorum : the problem after thirty years of statutory notification and sixty years of Credé prophylaxis / Arnold Sorsby.

Arnold Sorsby

Date:: 1945

Credit: Ophthalmia neonatorum : the problem after thirty years of statutory notification and sixty years of Credé prophylaxis / Arnold Sorsby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Incidence of Causative Organisms in Consecutive Cases of Ophthalmia Neonatorum (September 1939 to May 8th, 1945) ‘No organism in smear or culture 126 Gonococcus 180 Staphylococcus: Staphylococcus (not specified) 105 Staphylococcus aureus : Staphylococcus albus 46 Staphylococcus aureus and diphtheroids Staphylococcus albus and diphtheroids Staphylococcus and diphtheroids Other coccal organisms: Gram positive (not specified) Meningococcus Pneumococcus Streptococcus haemolyticus Non-haemolytic streptococcus Streptococcus viridans Micrococcus tetragenus Micrococcus catarrhalis Gram positive: unidentified Gram negative: unidentified Bacilli: Diphtheroids 60 Koch-Weeks Ise She Coliform 9 Xerosis 3 Morax-Axenfeld 8 Friedlander ” 2 5 3 I nh ore HK NWW HH STO OOO Hoffmann Gram positive . Gram Pas (not specified) . \, Pyocyaneus [? contamination] 4 737 The large proportion of cases in which no causal organism could be found— shown in this table and in-most published series—at one time constituted a con- siderable puzzle, but it is now clear that the bulk of such cases represent not faulty bacteriological findings but examples of ophthalmia neonatorum. due to a virus infection. It was recognized as early as 1909 that both in bacteriologically negative ophthalmia neonatorum and in cases of gonococcal ophthalmia intracellular bodies in the cytoplasm of the conjunctival epithelium could be found. These inclusion bodies, as they came to be known, raised the question as to the relationship between ophthalmia neonatorum and trachoma, in which affection similar inclusion bodies had been observed two years earlier by Halberstaedter and Prowazek. It is only of late years that any substantial addition has been made to knowledge gained in the ophthalmia neonatorum. That inclusion bodies may be found together with various organisms is clearly established, though there is no. agreement upon the frequency of such association. Uncomplicated inclusion blenorrhoea is generally regarded as having a longer incubation period than ophthalmia neonatorum due to microbial organisms. In no instance did it occur before the sth day, and only occasionally was it delayed beyond the roth day in the 57 cases studied by Thygeson and his associates. It is generally agreed that there are no distinguishing features in the clinical appearance of inclusion blenorrhoea in comparison to organismal ophthal- mia neonatorum. As in the case of trachoma virus, attempts to cultivate it have$