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RICHARD H. RAPKIN, MD
Children's Hospital of New Jersey 15 S Ninth St Newark, NJ 07107

Am J Dis Child. 1988;142(12):1261.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Sir.—Since I have been present at the death or near death of several patients with epiglottitis, I feel constrained to respond to your request¹ and to the article by Mauro et al. I also wish to call attention to previous discussions of this subject.^2,3

In none of the six patients with epiglottitis described by Mauro and colleagues was the epiglottis visualized by "light alone, simply asking the child to open his mouth." This is consistent with my own study⁴ in which the epiglottis was visualized in none of three patients. That study was extended for several years and in no instance was the epiglottis visualized in a patient with epiglottitis when he or she was examined sitting up, with voluntary opening of the mouth, without a tongue blade. This procedure is nearly risk-free; none of my patients had acute dypsnea as a result of it.

In my . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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