RENAL CARBUNCLE IN INFANCY

Renal carbuncle, so called because of its anatomic semblance to carbuncle elsewhere, is a localized massive suppuration within the kidney due to bacterial metastasis (usually staphylococcus), often produces marked toxemia, is rarely uncomplicated, is difficult to diagnose and, unrecognized or inadequately treated, entails a high mortality. Discussion of the lesion is found more often in surgical textbooks than in the literature; less than fifty cases have been reported. I have been unable to find a record of its occurrence in infancy. The two cases herewith reported, a boy and girl each admitted to the hospital at the age of 8 weeks with renal carbuncle and perirenal abscess and subsequently operated on, are unique because of the tender age of the patients. However, they are here described more especially because they forcibly demonstrate by specific example an insufficiently recognized principle of medical practice, namely, that infants and children are subject to