A 66-year-old patient developed severe urinary stasis due to a concrement in his right ureter; foudroyant septicemia followed. Lactobacillus gasseri was grown from pyoid urine from the right renal pelvis and in two blood cultures, thus suggesting septic urinary infection caused by lactobacilli. The infection was cured by catheterisation of right ureter and antibiotic treatment with cefotaxime and amoxicillin. The concrement was removed by dissolution. Diabetes and urinary stasis appear to be the main predisposing factors for this exceptional case of septic urinary infection caused by L. gasseri.

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A case of septicemia caused by Moraxella osloensis is described. A 4-year old girl fell ill with symptoms similar to those described in cases of septicemia caused by Neisseria meningitidis. Two days after the commencement of treatment with penicillins, however, Moraxella osloensis could be isolated from cerebral fluid, which contained only a small number of cells. It is assumed that the delayed recovery of the child was directly related to the diminished susceptibility of this Moraxella strain to penicillins. Since Moraxella strains may be resistant to these antibiotics, it is necessary to distinguish between Moraxella and N. meningitidis by means of laboratory tests. The symptoms elicited by Moraxella are similar to those in septicaemia caused by N. meningitidis, but are considerably milder in character.

We are presenting a case of Legionella type I pneumonia, accidentally diagnosed by selective culture with simultaneous identification of pneumococci, meningococci and Hemophilus influenzae in the general sputum culture. A 35-year-old patient had been hospitalized with the typical signs of Legionnaires' disease (severe pneumonia with symptoms of cardiac, hepatic, renal, and cerebral involvement), following several days of prodromi. The routine sputum bacteriology according to DGHM standards first revealed pneumococci, meningococci and H. influenzae in significant numbers. Later, the special culture medium named after Edelstein (BMPA alpha-medium), routinely inoculated in our laboratory, grew Legionella pneumophila type I. Legionella type I-specific serum antibodies in IIFT confirmed the diagnosis of Legionnaires' disease. After therapy with amoxicillin plus clavulanic acid and cefoxitin, the temperature declined and laboratory as well as radiologic findings returned to normal. Without the culture of L. pneumophila from expectorated sputum, the diagnosis of Legionnaires' disease would not have been found.