Infections of the neonate due to the group B Streptococcus have been recognized since the 1930s, but it was during the 1970s that their incidence grew alarmingly throughout the world. A research effort stimulated by this problem has yielded significant new information about many facets of the pathogenesis of these infections. Immunologic investigations have pinpointed a lack of transplacentally...

In one year Mycoplasma hominis was isolated from 8 out of 250 clinically infected eyes of newborn infants. This infection occurred in only a small proportion of babies whose mothers carried the organism in the vagina. Probably mycoplasma infection of the eye in neonates is commoner than is realized.