THIS STUDY was designed to review an 11-year experience with neonatal septicemia and meningitis at the New York Hospital. Particular attention is focused on the changing pattern of infection and etiological agents, the predisposing conditions to neonatal infection, and problems in diagnosis and therapy.
Material
The material for this study included all cases indexed by the New York Hospital record department as neonatal septicemia or meningitis. Only infants 30 days old or younger were considered. The 115 cases indexed between July 1953 and September 1964 included: (1) 31 infants suspected on clinical observation to have septicemia but without a confirmatory positive blood culture, (2) 68 cases proved by blood culture or spinal fluid culture or both; cultures were positive prior to death in those infants that died, (3) three infants who were not cultured prior to death, but who showed at autopsy bacteriologic and histologic evidence of septicemia, and (4)