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This report presents the findings in 25 cases of acute herpetic follicular conjunctivitis which presented without characteristic lid, face, or corneal signs of herpetic infections. In most of them, the correct diagnosis could be made only by cultural or serological tests for HSV infection. Methods and patientsPatients with acute follicular conjunctivitis or keratoconjunctivitis without facial, lid, or corneal lesions typical of HSV infection at the first visit, but with positive cultural or serological tests for HSV, were included.The patients were examined with a Haag-Streit

SUMMARY An open trial was carried out on 63 patients in London to assess the efficacy of 1 % rifampicin eye ointment in comparison with 1 % chloramphenicol eye ointment in the treatment of sexually transmitted TRIC infection of the eye. Patients included were selected on the basis of positive cultures for Chlamydia trachomatis.

to changes in the ultrafiltration properties of glomeruli, than they suggest.Secondly, their conclusion that increased tubular reabsorption ofalbumin did not contribute to the fall in excretion rate is based on the absence of any consistent change in the observed rate of IP2 microglobulin excretion. It has been shown, however, that ,2 microglobulin is unstable in urine within a pH range (pH <5 5) common in overnight urine.'2 A significant tubular contribution to the fall in excretion rate may not, therefore, be ruled out.We do not, however, disagree with the authors' conclusion that protein restriction may help to preserve renal function in insulin dependent diabetics with microalbuminuria.A POLAK and have yet to come across a resistant case. We have witnessed apparent failures of treatment, b-ut in all cases this was due to reinfection. Finally, the title of the article is misleading as airborne infection is not proved. The dentist's gloved fingers may have beefi contaminated with the doctor's saliva and may even have touched his ocular discharge. Assuming that the secretions were still infective, the organism could then have been accidentally inoculated into the'dentist's own eye. Though chlamydigl isolation from the dentist's urethral specimen was negative, there was no mention whether he had non-'specific urethritis, which may be negative for chlamydia in such patients.2 Until chlamydial genital infection has been excluded in the dentists sexual partners, we would question the actual mode of spreAd; the generalised assumptions 'in the paper raise too many unanswered questions.MALA AuToRs' REPLY,-Pressure ofspace prevented us from describing other important details in' the cases we presented.The chronology of infection in the three cases was as follows: the first to become ill was the patient in case 1, who, by attending our laboratory, probably accidentally contracted the conjunctival infection due to Chiamydia trachomatis. He then transmitted the conjunctival infection to his wife, and subsequently, through sexual relations, the infection spread to their orogenital areas. The initial treatment with tetracycline was carried out simultaneously in these two patients, who were well instructed by us on the pathogenesis of infection due to chlamydia. Consequently, we reject the hypothesis of possible reinfection between them, the possibility of reinfection from other sexual partners is also to be discarded.The dentist (case 3) stated that he did not notice any symptoms of urethritis and that he had no sexual relations'with his fiancee, whose ocular and pharyngeal cultures yielded negative results for C trachomatis. Fifteen days before the' doctor's dental visit the dentist had undergone a week's tetracycline treatment for a furuncle in his scalp.The doctor informed the dentis't ofthe nature ofhis chlamydial infection, and the dentist was thus very careful not to make any manual contact between the infected secretions of his patient and his own mucosa.Ours are only clinical observations, but can Dr Viswalingam and...