The present report deals with the clinical course of a four days old newborn infant's meningitis due to bacteria of the genus Aerobacter. The diagnosis was not easily done based on clinical symptoms only. The lumbar puncture, however, revealed a purulent fluid. Treatment consisted in the administration of sulphadiazine by mouth and streptomycin. The latter was given intramuscularly, intrathecally and intraventricularly. During the course of the illness a complication occurred — a pyoventriculitis — caused by ventricular block. The illness lasted 17 days. The patient died from hydrocephalus. Though clinical cure was not obtained, the medicamentous association proved to interfere with the course of the disease. Its beneficial effects were observed by the prolonged clinical course, by the negative spinal fluid bacteriological test and by the considerable improvement of the lumbar fluid. The autopsy showed chronical histopathological changes.
