INFECTIOUS MONONUCLEOSIS

Abstract

The American pediatric literature has singularly few discussions on infectious mononucleosis, or glandular fever, though numerous authors in other fields have referred to the condition as primarily an infection of childhood. There is a plausible explanation for this lack of interest among pediatricians. In general, authors have accepted reports of epidemics of glandular fever as referring to a disease identical with sporadic infectious mononucleosis, and they not infrequently have spoken of two types, endemic and epidemic, of glandular fever. However, as Tidy,¹who gave an excellent historical account of the disease, has pointed out, for thirty years after 1889, when Pfeiffer²first described<i>Drüsenfieber</i>, or glandular fever, case reports were based on clinical data only. Although many of these reports obviously reflect careful clinical observations, less critical enthusiasts in all probability included cases that could not stand the diagnostic criteria of the more recent discoveries about the pathologic