To the Editor: —Upon review of the six cases reported by Dr. O'Loughlin's group, 1 which incidentally appear to be identical to ours, I was surprised to find that only one of their six patients underwent biopsy, and the findings from this biopsy proved to be negative. Dr. O'Loughlin's statement that "no bacteriological or viral etiologic agents could be identified" does not, therefore, seem to be too surprising, at least to those investigators who appreciate the value of direct biopsy of a suspected infectious lesion to obtain material for bacteriologic culture and sensitivity studies. In commenting on Sherbel and Gardner's series, Dr. O'Loughlin et al state: "Vigorous diagnostic effort led to proof of infection either by aspiration or curettement of the intervertebral disk in 7 of the 10 cases with positive culture in each of these." To suggest, therefore, that our consecutive positive cultures for Staphylococcus aureus , obtained from five