Lymphoreticular aggregates in the newborn lung and their relation to intrauterine INFECTION and neurospinal dysraphism.

A survey has been carried out of lymphoreticular aggregates in the lungs of 200 children, stillborns and dying within 15 days of birth and in a further 21 children with anencephalus, and controls. Lymphoreticular aggregates occur in response to amniotic infection and are found in the 'intrauterine infection syndrome'. They are not found in children showing early hyaline membranes. The time interval required for the production of lymphoreticular aggregates in the human child appears to be at lease 48 h and is probably 72 h before the production of well-formed aggregates and this probably applies to both the intrauterine and the postnatal state. There is a significant increase in the number of lungs showing lymphoreticular aggregates at birth in children in whom there is neurospinal dysraphism. In such children there is necrosis of nervous tissue into the amniotic cavity and it would seem likely that this material has been antigenic to the lung in utero.