Transmission of Hepatitis B by a Finger-Stick Device

To the Editor: The report by Polish et al. (March 12 issue) 1 of a hospital-based outbreak of hepatitis B in 26 patients who had undergone capillary blood sampling by finger stick with a spring-loaded lancet device strikingly demonstrates how seemingly trivial inattention to hygienic details may spread viral hepatitis. Similar observations were reported in 1926 by Flaum et al. 2 from the Diabetes Clinic in Göteborg, Sweden. An icteric illness, then called epidemic or catarrhal jaundice, occurred in 28 ambulatory diabetic patients several months after they had been examined in the clinic's laboratory. Six additional cases were discovered in persons who . . .