ASPIRATION IN THE TREATMENT OF EMPYEMA IN CHILDREN

In 1929 we 1 reported a series of thirty-three consecutive cases of empyema in children, with a mortality of 9.1 per cent. Of these patients, twenty-eight, or 85 per cent, were cured by aspiration alone. One infant of 4 months of age recovered by spontaneous rupture through a bronchus. One older child was operated on after a number of aspirations had been done because the heart remained far to the right of its normal position. In the light of subsequent experience we feel sure that this child, too, would have recovered by aspiration alone. There were three deaths. One of these occurred in a child who went home against advice and died a week later; the second in an infant who died of pneumococcus septicemia and meningitis and in whom the incidental empyema cavity had a capacity, at autopsy, of less than 1 fluid ounce (30 cc.), and the third