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James A. Hallock, MD; Edward David, MD; Lawrence Marshall, MD
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia

JAMA. 1970;212(4):629.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The article by Kabins and Lerner (211:467, 1970) points out the devastating effects which pneumococcal infection can have in patients with sickle cell disease. The authors emphasize that the infection is often unsuspected until it is too late for therapy to be effective.

We recently had a similar experience with a 9-year-old Negro girl with sickle cell disease. The child became ill with fever and lethargy about 12 hours prior to admission. Initial evaluation including examination of the spinal fluid was normal. Following antipyretic measures, the temperature came down. She was no longer lethargic, and she was playing on the ward. Eighteen hours after admission, the patient had the sudden onset of dystaxic gait followed by rapid loss of consciousness and death within two hours. The autopsy was unremarkable. There was little histologic evidence of inflammation in the meninges and elsewhere, as in the reported cases, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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