Cystitis in Infants.

A writer in a foreign exchange believes that cystitis is much more common in nursing babies than we are inclined to think. He believes that we fail to make a diagnosis. He further believes that the symptoms are confused with similar ones with which we are familiar, which occur in diseases of the gastro-intestinal tract.

The pain, the distress, the local tenderness, the fever, are all attributed to abdominal disease, and as it is not easy to obtain a specimen of urine for analysis, the actual condition is overlooked.

The conditions which he has found in fifteen cases in which he believes he has made a correct diagnosis, are fever, pain, turbid, acid urine which contains bacteria, and agglutinated leucocytes. The urine is without odor and contains but little albumen.

The causes are similar to those which obtain in adult cases, and he is inclined to think that the bacilli from the intestinal tract are among the common causes.

Out of the fifteen cases which the writer observed, six were in male infants and all had phimosis, which caused the secretion and bacteria to be retained. The prognosis may be said to be good. Simple treatment will result in a cure. Usually irrigation is not necessary.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.