Heart Infection Puts Bob Dylan In N.Y. Hospital

Bob Dylan, who helped transform pop music more than 30 years ago when he electrified folk music, remained hospitalized today for treatment of a potentially fatal heart infection, his publicist said.

Dylan, who turned 56 Saturday, was admitted Monday to an undisclosed New York City hospital with severe chest pains, and his condition was diagnosed as histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that in rare instances causes swelling in the sac that surrounds the heart.

Elliot Mintz, Dylan's spokesman, would not disclose the singer's current condition or prognosis.

Histoplasmosis is caused by fungal spores that are usually inhaled. The spores invade the lungs in airborne bird or bat droppings, said Dr. Peter Cohn, chief of cardiology at University Hospital at Stony Brook, N.Y.

"It's an infection of the heart valve, an infection of the pericardial sac," he said. "It's . . . hard to treat. Results with antibiotics are not great." Dr. Cohn said the disease is similar to tuberculosis and "can leave thick scar tissue around the heart."

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chairman of the cardiothoracic surgery department at Montefiore-Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx, said that histoplasmosis causes "pneumonialike symptoms" and that people can be infected for "20 or 30 years before it causes trouble."

Word of Dylan's illness came from London, where a European tour that was to start this week has been canceled.

Publicists at his record label, Columbia, said Dylan's August tour of the United States has not been canceled.

Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, released his first album in 1962; it contained only two original songs and sold about 5,000 copies. But his second album included "Blowin' In the Wind," which became the anthem of the civil rights movement and launched Dylan as a folk star and a spokesman for disaffected young Americans.