The family consisted of two parents and five children. While the father remained in Cardiff, the mother and all the children visited Rawalpindi, Pakistan, for 6 weeks to stay with relatives. Travel was by flight from Heathrow airport to Pakistan and by a short road journey to Rawalpindi. Mrs M. – the mother – as a guest, did no cooking on the holiday. The house which they were living in had a piped water supply, thought to be treated. There was no flush toilet but a commode was available and was emptied daily. All the children had gastro-enteritis symptoms for 2–3 days after arrival. Ru M. – a daughter – had the most severe illness and was treated by a local doctor. Diarrhoea in the three girls persisted on return to U.K. A faecal swab from Ru M. showed her to be excreting S. typhi (degraded Vi phage type). She was admitted to hospital. Faecal samples from the remaining members of the family were taken and examined for entero-pathogens. The father, Fa. M., who had not left Cardiff, had negative stools and remained free from infection. All other family members were excreting one or more enteropathogens, including a Campylobacter sp., three types of Sh. flexneri and one type of Sh. boydii. A subsequent faecal sample revealed that one of the male children, A.M., was excreting S. typhi phage type B2. The two typhoid infections were apparently unconnected.

The efficacy of seven rodenticides for use against Sigmodon hispidus was investigated in the laboratory. The poisons (warfarin, coumatetralyl, difenacoum, brodifacoum, bromadiolone, calciferol and zinc phosphide) were all toxic at the concentrations normally used against Rattus rattus and R. norvegicus and all were palatable.

Trials are now needed to confirm the efficacy of these poisons in the field, but it seems likely that, if used in suitable bait formulations, they would all be useful for the practical control of S. hispidus.

Sixteen strains of Salmonella typhimurium phage type 179 were referred to the National Health Institute, Wellington, New Zealand, from 1977 to 1979. This phage type had not been observed here before 1977. All strains were resistant to ampicillin, several were also resistant to tetracycline, and several were resistant to ampicillin, tetracycline, sulphafurazele and trimethoprim. All resistances could be transferred to Escherichia coli K 12. Plasmids from these strains and their transconjugants were characterized by agarose gel electrophoresis. It appears that resistance to sulphafurazole and trimethoprim is carried on a plasmid with a molecular weight of 5·2 Mdal and that resistance to ampicillin and tetracycline is carried on a plasmid with a molecular weight of approximately 60 Mdal.

Strains of Staphylococcus aureus were isolated at a single sampling from cows in a dairy herd. When typed by phage most showed a complex pattern of lysis with group III and IV phages. Cross-spotting of strains showed great lytic activity and ten phages were isolated. The parent strains were lysogenized with these phages and the effect on the phage typing pattern of 202 daughter strains from 25 parent cultures was studied. Phage action was often blocked completely, with up to four being blocked on the one strain. Those most frequently blocked were phage 101, 117, 307 and 42D.

The changing seasonal patterns of reported measles cases in Iceland during this century are analysed. These changes are related to increased population mobility following the development of external and internal transport links, particularly since 1945. The forging of such links has resulted in a shift in the seasonal distribution of cases from one peculiar to the local social and economic conditions in Iceland to one broadly similar to that in other countries of northern temperate latitudes.

Åke Cederberg and Kai Österberg

J. Hyg., Camb. (1980), 84, 321–30

Figures 5 and 7 are transposed. Tho figure legends are correctly numbered.