This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Michael Callaham, MD
Highland General Hospital Oakland, Calif

JAMA. 1981;246(8):834.

	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.—

I have noted an erroneous impression given by my recent article in JAMA on dog bite wounds (1980;244:2327) that I would like to correct. The statement was made that anaerobic bacteria "are common but apparently do not cause infection." This was based on an early report by Goldstein et al¹ in which only aerobes were found in seven patients with cellulitis, while aerobes and anaerobes were common in wounds without cellulitis. The same author has recently published a more detailed description of this series² in which approximately 75% of cultures of infected wounds grew mixed cultures of both aerobes and anaerobes. Some 22 anaerobic strains were identified. Approximately 25% of infected wounds grew pure aerobic cultures; none grew pure anaerobes. However, the frequency of their occurrence suggests that when cultures are obtained for the indications outlined in my article, both aerobes and anaerobes should be . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?