Quantitative urine culture by the dipinoculum technique of Mackey and Sandys (1965) has shown that the pattern of infection in male children is quite different from that of female children. Among boys under the age of 14 Proteus mirabilis is the causative organism in about 75% of cases of active urinary infection. By contrast only 15% of infection in girls is due to Proteus, the dominant pathog...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic and arthritic autoimmune disease affecting millions of people throughout the world. During the last 4 decades extensive data indicate that subclinical urinary tract infection by Proteus mirabilis has a role in the aetiopathogenesis of RA based on cross-reactivity or molecular mimicry between Proteus haemolysin and RA-associated HLA-DRB1 alleles as well as...