An 11-year-old white male presents with a high-grade fever, a productive, blood-tinged cough, mucoid sputum, and pleuritic left-sided chest pain of a few days’ duration. The child had previously been well and is fully immunized.      A physical exam revealed a slight fever and tachypnea; decreased left respiratory excursion; increased vocal fremitus in left infrascapular area with dullness to percussion; bronchial breathing with coarse crackles heard over his left lung area. A chest x-ray indicated homogenous opacification of left lower lobe with small left pleural effusion.      Lab results showed an increased WBC count with a large than normal number of neutrophils. Gram-positive diplococci were present in a sputum sample. Alpha-hemolytic colonies of gram-positive diplococci grew on blood agar.