THe experiments recorded here were initiated following upon the occurrence in this country of foot-and-mouth disease in a cow, which a short time previously had been injected for the purpose of inducing oestrus with a pituitary extract imported from the Continent. Mr D. A. E. Cabot, M.R.C.V.S., Chief Veterinary Officer of the Ministry of Agriculture, made reference to this interesting case in a discussion on foot-and-mouth disease at the First Imperial Veterinary Conference held in London (1938). Confirmation of the nature of the infection was obtained by the inoculation of test animals under experimental conditions with suitable material collected from the injected animal. Further investigations were made. Three ampoules containing pituitary extract were obtained from the distributors in London of the imported commercial preparation under discussion. These ampoules belonged to the same batch as the ampoule with the extract from which the cow had been inoculated. Messrs A. Eccles, M.R.C. V.S. and A. M. Graham, M.R.C.V.S., at the Experimental Station of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Committee at Pirbright, tested this material for virus infectivity by the inoculation of cattle and guinea-pigs. They reported that all three samples of pituitary extract were contaminated with the virus of footand-mouth disease. In addition they produced evidence that the immunological type of the virus recovered from the extract in the ampoules was the same as that of the virus recovered from the cow, viz. Vallée and Carré 0. This and additional information left no doubt that the outbreak of the disease had been produced by the inoculation of the pituitary extract, and further that this extract had been prepared from the pituitary glands of cattle, which were very probably in the early stages of infection with foot-and-mouth disease at the time of slaughter.

In spite of the voluminous literature, much of it of a polemical rather than scientific nature, on the immunity relationships between variola and vaccinia, comparatively little work has been carried out on experimental animals, and the results of different workers are not altogether concordant. Even in the important article by Blaxall (1930) in the System of Bacteriology only a few lines were devoted to a discussion of the existing experimental evidence, and also in the more recent article by Gastinel (1938) this particular problem has been very briefly treated.

HArris & LEong (1936) found that vitamin B1; adsorbed from urine, could be measured by the rat bradycardia method of assay. The amount of vitamin B1 excreted was found to correspond in general with both the dietary intake and the physiological state of the subjects.

IN an early preliminary communication we (Martin & Moore, 1936) reported that in rats maintained for prolonged periods on diets deficient in vitamin E a brown discoloration of the uterus occurred. Degeneration of the convoluted tubules of the kidneys was also found. In a more recent paper we (Martin & Moore, 1938) described a less intense discoloration in the skeletal muscles, which was localized in distribution. The muscles of the hindlegs, which displayed the paresis described by Ringsted (1935), were always noticeably discoloured. In both the uterine and leg muscles discoloration was found to be associated with muscular degeneration. The similarity of the condition in the leg muscles to the nutritional muscular dystrophy first reported by Goettsch & Pappenheimer (1931) in guinea-pigs was noted. The purpose of this communication is to give a detailed account of this work, including its most recent developments (Moore, 1939).

THe identification of Salmonella cultures from cases of intestinal infection forms an important part of the routine duties of many bacteriological laboratories, and in this connexion the most important problem is to differentiate between B. paratyphosus B and the closely related food-poisoning bacilli. To the public health officer this differentiation is often a matter of great importance, for it is essential for him to know whether the case is one of paratyphoid fever or of infection by one of the food-poisoning organisms. The routine carbohydrate fermentation tests do not help to distinguish between these organisms but, as a general rule, agglutination tests are of service. Consequently, preliminary agglutination tests with “O” sera are carried out, and serve to place the organism in one of several subgroups. In this paper we are mainly concerned with organisms falling into that “0” subgroup containing B. paratyphosus B, B. aertrycke, and the “Stanley”, “Heidelberg”, “Chester”, “Derby”, “Reading”, Abortus equi and certain other strains of Salmonella (see Kauffmann, 1937). Later, tests with specific “H” sera can be performed and the cultures often accurately identified, but always the point of practical importance in such investigations is to distinguish between B. paratyphosus B and the foodpoisoning group. While it is often not of any practical importance to know the precise name of a food-poisoning bacillus, it is important to exclude the possibility of its being a strain of B. paratyphosus B.

FOr many years it has been a matter of common knowledge that bacteriophages can be easily isolated from water supplies. They were first demonstrated in water by Dumas in 1920, and many authors have since confirmed his observation (Arloing & Chavanne, 1925; Manoliu & Costin, 1925; Arloing & Sempé, 1926; Bilouet, 1926; d'Herelle, 1926; Monteiro, 1926; Bujanowski, 1929; Gildemeister & Watanabe, 1931; Stewart & Ghosal, 1931–1932; Schuurman & Schuurman-ten Bokkel Huinink, 1934; Dienert, 1934; Vagedes & Gildemeister, 1934; Panayotatou, 1935; Nick, 1936). These workers have recorded the presence of phages lysing dysentery, coliform, typhoid, paratyphoid, and, sometimes, cholera organisms in a wide variety of water supplies: e.g. lake, river, stream, canal and tap waters; phages have also been detected in sea water close to the shore.

IN the admirable pioneer studies of Griffith and his colleagues on the epidemiology of streptococcal infections in schools, “no systematic attempt was made to discover the distribution of streptococci amongst the healthy residents. And the observations on carriers were in general confined to those who were suspected to have some catarrhal infection of the upper air passages” (Griffith, 1938). In this paper we report the results of weekly swabbings of the throats of all children in a single dormitory or ward of an orphanage with 350 inmates, during an outbreak of scarlet fever due to Streptococcus pyogenes, serologically type 2 (Griffith). All haemolytic streptococci were typed by the slide agglutination technique, so that fluctuations in the distribution of the epidemic and non-epidemic strains could be followed.

FRom the point of view of industrial hygiene, it is important to estimate the occurrence of asthma, rhinitis vasomotoria and eczema and of the sensitization to flour amongst unselected groups of bread bakers, cake bakers and millers. For this purpose we have examined 262 flour workers, who formed the entire working staffs of certain bread bakeries, cake bakeries and milling companies in Amsterdam.

The knowledge of the nature of vaccinia virus gained in recent years and the methods of preparing relatively pure suspensions of the virus which have been developed justify the hope that the technique of vaccination against smallpox may be improved. The potency of vaccine lymph and its relative freedom from bacterial contaminants have been regulated under the Therapeutic Substances Act for several years past; nevertheless, for prophylactic purposes, it is desirable to introduce the use of pure bacteria-free virus in a measured volume of known potency. The usual method of vaccination which involves scratching the skin and applying to the scratch a variable amount of virus-containing lymph cannot be described as an accurate procedure and, unless proper precautions are taken, may invite local secondary bacterial infection. If it could be shown that a satisfactory immunity follows the intracutaneous injection of a measured amount of a bacteria-free suspension of virus, this method would possess obvious advantages; the usual dressing could be dispensed with, the amount of scarring, and the local secondary bacterial infection which is associated with vaccination would be reduced or abolished. In our opinion, the value of vaccinial scars has been exaggerated; they may be useful as visible evidence that the patient has been successfully vaccinated sometime in the past, but they are not an indication of existing immunity to smallpox. It is not usually suggested that any other measure of prophylactic inoculation should be accompanied by a permanent scar as a record of immunization.

IN a previous communication we (Pulvertaft, Lemon & Walker, 1939), gave an account of a method of sterilizing air by means of finely atomized antiseptic solutions, founded on the principles outlined by Trillat (1938). His claims were fully confirmed.

The mists used in this method may be produced by a number of different appliances, and in the experiments here described were produced by the “Phantomyst” (Andre Components, Ltd.). The essential appliances are:(1) a mechanical compressor, electrically driven, and (2) an atomizer, usually of scent-spray type, provided with (3) a baffling system which returns to the reservoir droplets above a certain size, thus avoiding much wastage.

IN 1932 and 1934, Myers showed that lethal doses of certain bacterial toxins when mixed with emulsions of olive oil, in a fine state of division, and injected subcutaneously into animals failed to produce their lethal effects. Similar results were obtained by Walsh & Frazer (1934). Cataphoresis experiments have shown that oil globules in emulsions of oil in water type carry a negative charge. On this basis it was assumed that an adsorption phenomenon might be the explanation of the failure of the bacterial toxins to produce their lethal effects when mixed with emulsions of oil in water type and injected into animals.