That there is a bacteriemia in many cases of pneumonia at some time during the course of the disease is now a well-established fact. Just how frequent this condition is, and whether it is actually present in every case are questions which have not been satisfactorily answered. Various observers have published, from time to time, reports of cases with widely varying results. It is possible that these discrepancies may be traced to differences in the technic employed, to the particular time in the course of the disease at which the cultures were taken, or to seasonal or geographic conditions affecting the severity of the disease, dependent, perhaps, on the virulence of the organism.
Rosenow,1 in this country, and Prochaska,2 Silvestrini and Sertoli,3 abroad, report the highest percentage of positive results. Rosenow, in a series of 145 cases, recovered an organism in 132, or 91 per cent. He