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The persistence of circulating leukocytes with potential for long-term in vitro proliferation was investigated in patients with heterophile-positive infectious mononucleosis. The ability to isolate long-term suspension cultures from peripheral blood with selective technics was a transient phenomenon for each patient studied, disappearing with a return of clinical and laboratory parameters toward the normal state. There was no close correlation between the ability to isolate cell lines and clinical, morphologic, biosynthetic or serologic manifestations of disease.

THE OCCURRENCE of Nocardia infections in childhood is rare. Since the late 19th Century when Nocard1 first isolated the organism from cattle and Eppinger2 described the first human case, only 16 cases in children have been documented in the world's literature. Nine cases were diagnosed only at the time of postmortem examination; of the seven cases recognized before death, only four have survived prior to this report.A comprehensive review of all previously reported Nocardia infections in children was made by Ballenger and Goldring3 in 1957. In the decade since that writing only five additional case reports have appeared. This communication describes the clinical course of successfully treated pulmonary nocardiosis in a 3½-year-old girl in whom the diagnosis was established by direct percutaneous lung biopsy. REPORT OF A CASE The patient, a 3½-year-old Negro girl, was admitted to the North Carolina Memorial Hospital in September 1965 with