Tuberculosis affecting the larynx of children is not frequently considered. This is so because pulmonary tuberculosis is infrequent in children. Tuberculosis of the larynx of a child is usually discovered during routine examination because the symptoms are frequently not pronounced.
As early as 1806 Laignelet1 reported the case of a child 12 years of age. Thirty years later Trousseau and Belloc2 reported 2 cases and called attention to the rarity of tuberculosis of the larynx before puberty. The statistics of many investigators verify the rarity of this condition. Only 1 of 500 tuberculous larynges examined by Mackenzie3 was that of a child. Of 100 tuberculous patients on whom autopsy was performed, 5 were under 15 years of age. Demme4 reported laryngeal involvement in 7 children in 1883. In the same year Froebelius5 reported on a series of 16,581 autopsies on children during a ten year period. There were 416 with