[Septicemia in children according to autopsy data]

Analysis of section material was carried out covering the period 1943-1975. It was established that proportion of septic diseases in the general structure of children's mortality in the recent years was stabilized at rather high levels (1973-1975--17.1%). Fatal outcomes were most often among infants at the early period of life in whom sepsis developed against the background of premorbid factors including prematurity, malformations, pathologic labour, mother's diseases, etc. The course of sepsis was particularly severe in infants with congenital immunodeficient states. The main pathogene of sepsis at present is staphylococcus. During the period under study, correlation and morphology of various forms of sepsis varied depending upon the pathogene and therapy applied. Since 1968 and up to new the most common form of sepsis has been that morphologically identical to sepsis observed in 1943-1947, i.e. before the wide application of antibiotics.