To the Editor: I read with interest the recent case report by Lim and colleagues on Chromobacterium violaceum endocarditis.1 References to the article do not include a report of a similar case published 20 years ago, also in the MJA.2 Perhaps reference searches can be enhanced — otherwise, identifying such similar cases falls to recollected experience (I was the initial treating doctor in the 1988 case) or an improbably capacious memory in the author or reader.

What saved the patient in February 19882 were two new antibiotics that were not generally available at the time but were held at Royal Brisbane Hospital — imipenem and ciprofloxacin. Imipenem is a β-lactam antibiotic of the carbapenem subgroup, derived from Streptomyces cattleya, that was developed in 1985.3 Imipenem and other carbapenems including meropenem, as used to treat the patient in the article by Lim et al,1 are now available in Australia but restricted to intravenous use in hospitals. The oral antibiotic ciprofloxacin became generally available with a Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme authority benefit soon after the 1988 case.

I recall a discussion at that time with the late Dr Richard Kemp (then Director of Infectious Diseases at Royal Brisbane Hospital), who told me that C. violaceum infection in humans had been described in the world medical literature only about 10 times, and there had been no eventual survivors. From a general practitioner’s perspective, there was a lesson to be learned from the case: take the time to swab an abscess. The one in question was unusual — volcanic in appearance, indurated and not productive of pus on incision.