1. There occurs in nature an organism belonging to the group of Gram-positive aerobic sporing bacilli which closely resembles B. anthracis, especially in its cultural characters.

2. These organisms occur commonly in materials that are frequently examined for the presence of B. anthracis.

3. The B. anthracoides is pathogenic to guinea-pigs and mice under experimental conditions, and would appear to occupy a position between the virulent B. anthracis and the non-pathogenic members of the group of aerobic sporing bacilli, e.g. B. subtilis, B. mesentericus.

4. Subcutaneous injection of cultures of B. anthracoides produces a local inflammation with gelatinous oedema and a fatal septicaemia.

5. Only large doses of living organisms are lethal and attempts to increase the virulence of this organism by various methods have not proved successful.

6. Individual animals vary considerably in their resistance to the organism.

7. With the exception of B. anthracis, the B. anthracoides contrasts with the other members of the group in its pathogenic properties under experimental conditions. Twenty-five strains of this organism have been isolated, each of which possesses pathogenic properties. The pathogenicity of 49 strains of other representatives of the group has been tested, and only one of these was found to have lethal effects.

The production of soluble toxic substances in broth cultures of these bacteria is well known. Berkefeld nitrates of such cultures are usually toxic for the rabbit upon intravenous injection. A review of the literature has been given by Ecker (1917, 1925) and by Branham (1925). Subsequent studies of these workers have shown that Berkefeld filtrates of synthetic medium (Braun and Cahn-Bonner, 1921) cultures yielded toxic substances inducing a similar reaction in the rabbit. Little is known concerning the nature of these substances beyond that they are relatively thermostabile; on dialysis of the broth culture nitrate the toxin is withheld within the collodium sac.

Drinking water has long been supposed to play an important part in the causation of endemic goitre. Estimations by v. Fellenberg (1923, 1924) in Switzerland and by Mcclendon and Hathaway (1924) in the United States have shown that, in these countries, drinking water in goitre areas contains less iodine than in goitre-free areas. The iodine content of several waters has been estimated at this Institute. The results show that in this country there is no correlation between presence of goitre and a low iodine content in drinking water. It is true that the lowest figure (Swindon) is for water from a goitre area, but the next one (Aberdeen) is not. The figures for Cumberland and Derbyshire, both goitre areas, are not low.

There could be no more suitable preface to emphasise the need for Diphtheria prevention than the following quotation from so high an authority as the metropolitan Asylums Board's Report of 1924–25: “Notwithstanding the great improvement in diagnosis, standard of living, education in matters of hygiene and other public health measures, the fact remains that, for reason not altogether clear, diphtheria appears to be stregthening its forces and gathering power unchecked by science.”

1. The phenomenon of refection has been confirmed.

2. The incidence of spontaneous growth of rats on a vitamin B-free diet is very much greater when potato starch instead of rice starch is used in the diet.

3. Raw arrowroot starch gave similar but not such good results.

4. The protective action is largely destroyed by gentle cooking of the starch, and less so by extraction with alcohol.

We wish to thank Prof. Sir F. G. Hopkins for his encouragement and interest during this work.

One of us (S. K. K.) is indebted to the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation for a fellowship, and the other (E. W.) is indebted to the Medical Research Council for a personal grant.

The difficulties encountered in distinguishing pneumococci from streptococci, particularly S. salivarius, have been enumerated and the morphological and cultural similarities between the two groups of organisms have been pointed out. If bile-solubility is taken as the distinguishing mark of a pneumo-coccus it will be found that there are a large number of bile-insoluble streptococci commonly met with in the respiratory tract and sometimes playing an important part in disease, which bear very strong resemblances to pneumococci both in shape, colony, and broth culture. The similarities are specially confusing in mixed cultures on agar plates and a number of the routine tests applied quite failed to distinguish them. There naturally follows the corollary that some of these tests fall wide of the mark, and they should therefore be left out of the bacteriologist's armamentarium when the identification of pneumococci is under consideration. Morphological and cultural properties are insufficient guides to species, while the same is true of the widely recommended tests of inulin fermentation and capsule formation. Not only do some pneumococci fail to ferment inulin, but so many strains of S. salivarius show active inulin fermentation that, in the present series of organisms taken at random, the incidence of inulin fermenters amongst S. salivarius is actually higher than amongst pneumococci. Capsules were found in all the strains of streptococci in which they were sought and in all the pneumococci investigated, so that encapsulation may be regarded as a property common to members of both species.

1. Notification and hospitalisation have had no apparent effect on the death rate from pneumonia in Glasgow.

2. The notifications of pneumonia do not represent the true incidence of the disease, though there is reason to believe that in Glasgow they represent about 76 per cent. of the total cases.

3. It has been shown that in Glasgow the pneumonia mortality in children under five years is closely related to environmental conditions.

4. Evidence has been adduced to suggest that the mortality figures for pneumonia in children under five years are considerably influenced by out breaks of measles and whooping cough, especially the former.

5. There has been in Glasgow since 1855 a striking alteration in the conception of what constitutes bronchitis and broncho-pneumonia in children under five years; what is now recognised as broncho-pneumonia once was largely certified as bronchitis.

(1)Statistical evidence cannot be deduced from such a small series of cases, but it would seem that the extent to which agglutinins for B. proteus X. 19 (Weil-Felix) were formed in the blood varied directly as the severity of the illness, since with the older and more ill patients a much higher dilution of serum agglutinated the organism at or near crisis than was the case with the younger patients, who were less acutely ill. An exception to this rule was met with in one case (Mrs E. R.), whose serum did not agglutinate the organism in a dilution beyond 1: 250, although she was the most severely ill of all the patients. It is possible that failure of agglutinin-formation resembles the absence of leucocytosis in the severely ill case of pneumonia and may be regarded as a bad prognostic feature.

(2)A positive Weil-Felix reaction was not obtained before the fifth day of illness, nor in any case before the characteristic rash appeared, so that the reaction is of little value as a factor in the early diagnosis of typhus. Later, a reaction in which a dilution of the serum of 1: 50 agglutinates the organism may be regarded as diagnostic of typhus.

(3)The Weil-Felix reaction remained positive for the longest period in those cases whose serum agglutinated in highest dilution, and in these patients a positive reaction (1: 25–1: 50) was still present nine to twelve weeks after infection, whereas in the milder cases, and in Mrs E. R., the reaction became negative in six to eight weeks from the onset of illness.

(4)In view of this heterologous reaction in typhus, it is interesting to record that the Wassermann reaction obtained before crisis was positive in four out of six cases. It was still positive in two of the most severely ill patients a week after crisis, but was negative in all cases a week later.

This experiment has demonstrated that it is possible consistently to produce milk containing small numbers of bacteria and of good keeping quality by the use of milking machines.

It has been shown that the milking units and their rubber components may be successfully sterilised by steam.

The pipe lines have been shown to be a possible source of heavy contamination, and means of preventing this have been described.

1. When refected rats are fed on adequate diet, containing vitamin B in the form of yeast, the defect in their starch-digestion disappears, and their faeces become normal.

2. Attempts to cause refection in rats receiving an adequate diet by feeding white faeces from refected rats do not influence the starch digestion of the former.

3. When refected rats, growing normally, are fed upon a diet devoid of starch (as well as of vitamin B) their body weight decreases rapidly, but in spite of this decrease they live for a considerable time.

4. Refection cannot be induced in young rats fed upon a diet devoid of starch and of vitamin B.

5. Rats may become or may remain refected when the starch of their 1. diet is replaced by dextrin containing a small amount of starch. The faeces of these rats do not seem able to refect other rats.

6. Rats may be refected without producing white faeces, but starch grains have always been present in the faeces of such rats.

7. The results of special experiments and the clinical observation of refected rats suggest an essential connection between the ability to grow and thrive without vitamin B and the defective digestion of starch.

8. Attempts at refection have no beneficial influence upon rats suffering from a deficiency of vitamin A.

9. Refection has been transmitted to albino mice receiving a diet devoid of vitamin B, but the refection lasted only for a short time. Attempts at refection of rice-fed pigeons have not succeeded.

10.The bearing of studies in refection upon several problems connected with vitamin B is discussed.

The Preceding paper by Fridericia and his co-workers on “A Transmissible Change in the Instestinal Content, enabling Rats to Grow and Thrive without vitamin B in the Food” deals with results so novel and unexpected that a brief statement from another laboratory confirming them, is not redundant.

This paper deals with a micro-organism recovered from human blood in a case of a typhoid-like infection. No evidence could be produced of either typhoid or paratyphoid bacilli being the cause. Only one germ was recovered from blood cultures on two occasions, it was strongly agglutinated by the patient's serum, suggesting that it probably produced a true infection in man. This study was undertaken because certain features of the organism may lead to a faulty diagnosis of paratyphoid. The author deems it a new species in the light of the tests he applied and refers it to the genus Proteus Hauser (emend. Amer. Comm.) under the name Pr. pseudovaleriae.