Basabendra Chattopadhyay

Fulminant sepsis following splenectomy remains a major problem. Even with the administration of pneumococcal vaccine and prophylactic antibiotics fatalities still occur. A better understanding of the complex immunological function of the spleen, its preservation as much as possible during surgery, potent vaccine and perhaps more effective antibioti...

Syphilis, though rare, is a serious disease particularly in pregnancy, as undetected it will have severe adverse effects on the growing fetus. An alarming increase in the incidence of primary and secondary syphilis in some countries must prompt efforts to control congenital syphilis by screening and treatment of targeted high-risk groups of women.

Following a major outbreak of food poisoning in 1974 at one of our hospitals for the mentally handicapped, we felt there was a need to set up a district food hygiene group (Kapila & Buttery, 1986). At that time there were two large (preparing more than 3000 meals each), and eight small kitchens serving approximately 3500 meals per day in our distri...

An extensive survey of patients and the environment in a newly refurbished intensive care unit showed that the principle species on patients in sites other than the rectum were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Serratia marcescens, Acinetobacter anitratus and Enterobacter cloacae. Multiple episodes of cross-infection were occurring wit...

Methods for the isolation and enumeration of Aeromonas hydrophila in water supplies are described. Examination of 286 chlorinated samples collected between July and October showed that 19% of otherwise uncontaminated waters contained Aerom. hydrophila, rising to 71% of those from which Escherichia coli was isolated. The isolation rate during Januar...

A study was carried out to investigate the in vitro susceptibility of 211 clinical isolates of ticarcillin resistant (MICs greater than 128 micrograms/ml) Gram-negative rods to a combination of ticarcillin plus clavulanic acid. The combination demonstrated superior activity; 90% of the Proteus spp. and 50% of E. coli and Klebsiella spp. isolates we...

Over a four and a half month period, 1004 unselected routine faecal specimens from 815 patients were cultured for Aeromonas hydrophila. Forty-two specimens (4.2%) representing 38 patients were culture-positive. The study specimens also yielded Salmonella on 116 occasions, Shigella on seven, Campylobacter species on six and other bacterial pathogens...

The in vitro activity of ticarcillin, piperacillin, azlocillin and mezlocillin was determined against 403 clinical isolates. At MIC50, piperacillin was 2 to 8 times more active than the other three compounds against Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Proteus, Citrobacter, Acinetobacter and Salmonella species. Against Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Haemophil...

Ceftazidime (GR 20263), a new cephalosporin, exhibited potent broad spectrum activity in vitro against 381 clinical isolates of bacteria. There was excellent correlation between the disc diffusion sensitivity and determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) with insignificant inoculum effect. At concentrations at or below 0·5 mg/l, i...

Of 36 multi-resistant Gram-negative bacilli isolated from different cases of urinary tract infection, 18 strains of Ercherichia coli, klebsiella, enterobacter, proteus, providencia and serratia with the exception of Acinetobacter species showed synergy when mecillinam was combined with cephradine or amoxycillin the ratio of 1:1. Combination with ce...