Scoy, Robert E. Van

To deterimine the incidence of bacteremia in healty adults, blood cultures were obtained from 240 patients who had no demonstrable foci of infection. Five patients (2.1%) had positive blood cultures. Staphylococcus epidermidis was isolated from four patients and Alcaligenes faecalis from one. In each of these patients, the organism isolated probably represented contamination rather than bacteremia.

Branhamella catarrhalis was isolated from sputum, tracheal secretions, and a nonhealing and infected thoracic surgical wound in a 59-year-old woman who had a history of a chronic, interstitial fibrosis and who had undergone an open lung biopsy procedure. The patient's upper respiratory tract was the likely source of the organism. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a wound infection caused by B. catarrhalis.