Treatment of Chronic Bronchitis and Bronchiectasis with Intravenous Tetracycline

Antibiotics have been successful in controlling many of the cases of pneumonia that occur in patients with chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis, but their effect upon the underlying disease is uncertain. Analysis of the problem is complicated by uncertainty as to which of the many micro-organisms that are cultured from the sputum of patients with bronchiectasis are etiologic and which are merely saprophytes. Mulder and his associates^1-3and many other investigators^4-8stressed the importance of Hemophilus influenzae in chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis. Pneumococci appear to be the next most frequent pathogenic organisms, although the frequency with which they are cultured depends upon the thoroughness of the search. Stuart-Harris et al.⁷cultivated them from 58% of sputa from patients with bronchiectasis and 51% of sputa from patients with chronic bronchitis. Allison and his associates⁴found them in only 11% of their patients with bronchiectasis. May⁸cultured them