In 1927 Hilda M. Woods and I contributed to this Journal a study of some aspects of a syndrome called “Status Thymicus,” “Status Thymico-Lymphaticus” or simply “Status Lymphaticus.” We were moved by three considerations: (1) that Prof. H. M. Turnbull had placed at our disposal a long series of weighings of the Thymus, the alleged principal villain of the piece; (2) that every year a not inconsiderable number of deaths are put to the account of this syndrome; (3) that the first volume of Prof. J. A. Hammar's monograph on the Thymus had recently been published. Since our publication, the annual quota of victims shows no signs of diminution (Table I) and the second volume of Prof. Hammar's work has appeared.

Comparatively little work has been published upon the bacteriological investigation of the urine in the healthy woman either normally or during pregnancy and the puerperium, and the findings in such work as has been published are contradictory. In 1912, Leith Murray, Stenhouse Williams and A. J. Wallace, working together upon the coliform organisms in the female urinary tract, came to the conclusion that typical Bacillus coli is found in a considerable percentage of all female urines taken under conditions precluding all sources of contamination, and that ordinarily they have no apparent pathological significance. John Hewitt, in 1923, published a report upon 34 cases of urinary infection during pregnancy and the puerperium. He agreed with Leith Murray and other workers who had quoted figures to show that healthy pregnant women may have B. coli in the urine in the absence of pus cells.

The results are collected in Table I, and it may be concluded that:

1. Under ordinary conditions in the south of England B. tuberculosis may remain alive and virulent in cow's faeces exposed on pasture land for at least 5 months during winter, for 2 months during spring and for 4 months during autumn. In summer no living organisms were demonstrated after 2 months.

2. Under special conditions, e.g. protection from direct sunlight, the survival period may be 4 months during summer. In autumn faeces protected from earthworms, etc., yielded bacilli after 6 months.

In 1929, for the third time in the present century, cerebrospinal fever occurred in Glasgow in epidemic form. The first epidemic, which was by far the most severe, was in 1906–8, the total number of cases recorded being 1363. Descriptions of the events of these years were given by Dr A. K. Chalmers (1906) in the Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health of Glasgow for 1906 and 1907, and also in a paper read before the Epidemiological Society. In this outbreak the fatality rate of cases treated in hospital was given as 74·8 per cent. by Currie and Macgregor (1908). The total number of cases admitted to hospital was 910. The incidence of the disease was highest during the months of January to May of 1907, and there was a slight recrudescence in the same months of the following year. The characteristics of the epidemic form of cerebro-spinal fever were present in so far as there occurred several instances of multiple infection in the same house, and a number of cases showed the exanthem peculiar to the disease.

1. A given strain of Bact. aertrycke was sub-cultured daily, except on Sundays, in 5–7 c.c. of casein broth, pH 7·4–7·6, under different partial pressures of oxygen. Most experiments were continued till about ninety sub cultures had been made. Virulence determinations were made from time to time by intraperitoneal inoculation of twenty mice with about 100 living organisms, the control and the experimental cultures generally being tested simultaneously. The results showed that under anaerobic conditions there was no appreciable change in virulence. Under the usual aerobic conditions, and in partial pressures of oxygen varying from 1 to 21 per cent., the virulence declined, the extent and rapidity of the fall increasing with the pressure of oxygen supplied. In high partial pressures of oxygen, varying from 40 to 100 per cent., there was a slight increase in virulence, the increase being greatest in cultures incubated in pure oxygen.

2. Some of the literature dealing with incitants to microbic dissociation is discussed, particularly that dealing with variations in oxygen pressure.

3. In explanation of the experimental results obtained, a tentative hypothesis is put forward with reference to the dissociation of Bact. aertrycke. It is suggested that under aerobic conditions, and under low partial pressures of oxygen generally, substances are formed in the medium, as the result of growth, which favour dissociation, and lead to the appearance of weakly virulent or completely avirulent variants. Under anaerobic conditions these substances either are not formed at all, or appear in amounts too small to be of significance. In cultures incubated in high partial pressures of oxygen, these substances are formed, probably in large quantity, but owing to the high alkalinity of the medium and the abundant oxygen present, they undergo rapid destruction. This explanation is based on the fact that many protein degradation products, particularly those with a phenolic grouping, prove markedly unstable in an alkaline medium in the presence of free oxygen.

As an alternative hypothesis it is suggested that the maintenance of the organisms in the virulent state depends on the intracellular pH. Under anaerobic conditions it is supposed that the metabolism is such as to lead to no marked change in the H-ion concentration within the cell. In the presence of air and of low pressures of oxygen generally, owing to the breakdown of the protein in the medium and the production of ammonia, the intracellular reaction becomes more alkaline; whereas in high pressures of oxygen the increased amount of CO2 produced is sufficient to compensate for the production of ammonia, and the intracellular pH remains more or less at its original value. This hypothesis rests on the observation of Stephenson and Whetham (1924) that in high pressures of oxygen Bact. coli may produce considerably larger quantities of CO2 from lactic acid than under ordinary aerobic conditions; and on the demonstration by Jacobs (1920 b) that, owing to the ease with which CO2 is able to penetrate the living cell, the intracellular pH may differ markedly from that of the medium to which the cell is exposed.

4. It is of interest to note that Bact. aertrycke, when incubated under partial pressures of 40 to 75 per cent. of oxygen, rapidly passed into the nonmotile O form.

The series of family budget enquiries which have been carried out in Denmark during the last fifty years enable us now to form a fairly clear idea of the food consumption both in the towns and in the rural districts, in the well-to-do homes as well as amongst the poor.

The chief object of the research here recorded was to try and bring this Colony into line with other plague centres from which valuable figures on this subject have already been recorded.

In recognition of the need for understanding, and for making proper allowances for differences in body growth and physical development during school life, it has been the custom at the Manchester Grammar School to take annual measurements of standing and sitting height, girth of chest, of upper and lower arm, and also range of vital capacity of all the boys amounting to about 1000 in number, and to compare their physical growth with their school attainments. The measurements are graded for each boy as regards height, weight, chest girth and vital capacity, in order to discover the rate and range of growth in each category, and see how far the growth in one category is commensurate with the growth in another. The grading in each category is expressed in time-increments of six months' growth above or below the normal boy of his age, so that, e.g. a boy who is a year ahead or a year behind the average boy of his age in height is graded + 2 or − 2 in height, and so forth. Similar and separate gradings are used for weight, chest girth and vital capacity. At the time of annual measurement, enquiry is also made into the physical activities in which each boy participates, e.g. the games he plays, his performance in the swimming bath, in the gymnasium, etc.