HEALED SUBACUTE BACTERIAL ENDOCARDITIS, A NEW ENTITY

Subacute bacterial endocarditis has been, until recently, an almost uniformly fatal disease. Statistics relative to the mortality in the prepenicillin era have varied from practically 100 per cent as quoted by most observers¹ to 97 per cent noted by Libman.² Because of this poor prognosis, the major effort in the past has been directed toward obtaining more effective forms of therapy for the eradication of the infection. Until recently relatively little attention could be devoted to the long-term influence of the infectious process on the myocardium, valvular apparatus and previous cardiovascular abnormalities, because so few patients survived the active phase of the disease. With the advent of more successful therapy, a cure of the active infection has been achieved in a significant number of cases, and greater therapeutic success can be anticipated as the methods improve. Unfortunately, in the entity of healed subacute bacterial endocarditis increasing examples of