RT Book, Section A1 Goldblatt, David A1 O’Brien, Katherine L. A2 Kasper, Dennis L. A2 Fauci, Anthony S. SR Print(0) ID 1141407337 T1 PNEUMOCOCCAL INFECTIONS T2 Harrison's Infectious Diseases, 3e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781259835971 LK accessbiomedicalscience.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1141407337 RD 2024/03/28 AB In the late nineteenth century, pairs of micrococci were first recognized in the blood of rabbits injected with human saliva by both Louis Pasteur, working in France, and George Sternberg, an American army physician. The important role of these micrococci in human disease was not appreciated at that time. By 1886, when the organism was designated “pneumokokkus” and Diplococcus pneumoniae, the pneumococcus had been isolated by many independent investigators, and its role in the etiology of pneumonia was well known. In the 1930s, pneumonia was the third leading cause of death in the United States (after heart disease and cancer) and was responsible for ~7% of all deaths both in the United States and in Europe. While pneumonia was caused by a host of pathogens, lobar pneumonia—a pattern more likely to be caused by the pneumococcus—accounted for approximately one-half of all pneumonia deaths in the United States in 1929. In 1974, the organism was reclassified as Streptococcus pneumoniae.