(1) It is impossible to distinguish the lesions of melioidosis from those of glanders by means of inspection with the naked eye or even with the microscope.

(2) The symptoms and course of the two diseases are similar. Melioidosis generally runs a more acute course.

(3) The mallein test was applied in a case of chronic human melioidosis and gave a positive reaction. The mallein was obtained from Java.

(4) The blood of this chronic case agglutinated the Muktesar and Java strains of B. mallei to full titre and the Minett strain to 10 per cent, of this amount. One of these strains (Muktesar) absorbed the agglutinins for the homologous bacillus.

(5) There are very few horses in the Federated Malay States. Melioidosis is primarily a disease of rodents. All attempts to infect horses have been unsuccessful.

(6) Melioidosis broke out spontaneously among the rabbits, guinea-pigs and rats at the Institute for Medical Research in 1913. The animals became infected through eating contaminated food.

(7) Cases of infection in wild rats and in a domestic cat have occurred far away from this laboratory and independently of it.

(8) Rabbits, guinea-pigs and rats have been infected experimentally, by feeding, by subcutaneous inoculation, by scarification and by the application of infective material to the nasal mucosa.

(9) B. whitmori, whose growth in cultures occur in two forms, a commoner corrugated form and a mucoid form which gives origin to the corrugated type.

(10) B. whitmori differs from B. mallei in the following particulars. It is actively motile. It forms a corrugated growth on glycerine agar, a white opaque growth on ordinary agar and a pellicle on the surface of broth. It grows more rapidly than B. mallei, and it liquefies gelatine in a few days.

(11) B. whitmori resembles B. mallei in the following particulars. The morphology of the organisms is similar. Young cultures of the mucoid form are indistinguishable from B. mallei, by inspection. The growth of the mucoid form on potato is similar. The action on milk and carbohydrates differs in degree only. Both organisms produce Strauss's reaction in guinea-pigs.

(12) Five strains of B. mallei were compared with fourteen strains of B. whitmori. The cultures of B. mallei comprised three from the National Collection at the Lister Institute, one from Muktesar and one from Java. The cultures of B. whitmori had been isolated, some from human cases of melioidosis and some from animals which had acquired the disease naturally.

(13) The serological reactions of these organisms, namely agglutination, absorption and complement-fixation tests, showed that the cultures of B. whitmori were a homogeneous group, but the five strains of B. mallei were sharply divided into two sub-groups by their serological reactions. One sub-group includes the Muktesar and Java strains; the other comprises the three strains from the National Collection (Minett, Egypt and A.).

(14) The first sub-group of B. mallei is very closely related to B. whitmori. The serological reactions of the strain from Muktesar are almost identical with those of B. whitmori.

(15) The three strains of B. mallei from the National Collection, which form the second sub-group, are only distantly related to the Muktesar sub group and to B. whitmori.

There are many forms of bacterial disease in which the search for the causal organism is complicated by the fact that it is present, not in pure culture, but associated with the number of other bacteria which may or may not be taking part in the infective process.

This work was undertaken for the purpose of determining the occurrence and specificity of bacterial precipitins in infections caused by the Staphylococcus aureus. The differences in antigenic properties of various strains of orange and white staphylococci employed in the preparation of the filtered antigens and the importance of the presence of peptone in this connection led to numerous experimental observations which had not been anticipated. The presence of strong S. aureus precipitins in the blood of an adult suffering from very acute serum sickness following an injection of anti-diphtheritic serum led to an investigation of the blood of patients suffering from serum sickness, the results of which are fully recorded here. The investigation of the blood of normal rabbits revealed the fact that in some of these animals staphylococcal precipitins were present, which led to unexpected difficulties in the study of precipitins in the actively immunised animal.

A technique is described for the preparation of a vaccine from coliform bacilli isolated from the faeces of a patient and agglutinated by his blood serum.

The encouraging results obtained in the treatment of a number of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, chronic rheumatism, and allied diseases with an autogenous vaccine prepared by this technique, are reported.

The absence of agglutinins for coliform bacilli from the blood of healthy persons is established, while it is shown that such agglutinins are present in high concentration in the group of diseases under consideration.

A report is made on the result of attempts to classify the coliform bacilli by cultural and serological reactions.

The facts reported are discussed, and the proposition adduced therefrom that if a patient has in his blood a certain concentration of agglutinins for a coliform bacillus isolated from his faeces, he is suffering from an infection with, or from the absorption of toxins elaborated by, that coliform bacillus, and a vaccine prepared from this organism will probably have a marked curative effect.

Suggestions are made as to the mechanism of infection with coliform baciffi, and as to the significance of variants in that group of organisms found in the faeces.

IN considering the factors which are concerned in the spread of any epidemic bacterial infection among any host-population, the resistance brought into play by the latter will clearly be of crucial importance.

Among the formulae which describe relationships found in physics, chemistry and biology is one commonly known as the “adsorption formula.” It graduates for a considerable range of experiment the amount of adsorption which takes place at the bounding layers of solids, fluids and gases or immiscible fluids in presence of different concentrations of the substance adsorbed. It may be written in the form x = aCn where x is the amount of the substance adsorbed; C the concentration of the adsorbed substance after equilibrium has been attained; n is an absolute constant less than unity; and a is a constant depending in value on the units of measurement.