Dishoeck (1935) confirmed the claim for the discovery of nose “opening” rays made by L. Hill (1932), a discovery denied by Dufton and Bedford (1933) and Winslow, Greenburg and Herrington (1934). By means of a blower fan and a well-fitting tube Dishoeck sends a stream of air through one nasal orifice and out through the mouth while the subject holds his breath. The input pressure of the air, meanwhile, is measured by a water manometer which is connected with the air tube just before this enters the nasal orifice. A few seconds suffices to secure such a reading. He calibrates the instrument by measurements made with glass tubes, each about the length of the nasal passage, viz. 6 cm., and fitted with varying diaphragmatic holes.

The bronchial constriction occurring in death from acute anaphylaxis has been demonstrated radiologically by the use of lipiodol.

An investigation has been made of the iron intake of sixty-three men and sixty-three women of the English middle class, living on freely chosen diets. Their intakes of total iron have been found to have mean values of 16·8 and 11·4 mg. per day respectively. The highest value found for any woman was only just above the average for the men, and 30 per cent, of the women were taking less than 10 mg. of iron a day.

“Available” or inorganic iron in the diets has also been calculated, and has been found to average 10·8 mg. per day for men and 7·9 mg. for women. If fairly large amounts of meat are eaten, the available iron may be less than half the total iron in the diet. If, on the other hand, the diet is mainly vegetarian, about 90 per cent, of the total iron may be available.

Haemoglobin determinations were made on more than 50 per cent, of the subjects. The men's average was 102 per cent, and the women's 93 per cent. No significant correlation could be found between the total or available iron intake and the haemoglobin level.

The effect of large doses of iron (100 mg. of iron a day as ferrous sulphate or ferric ammonium citrate) on normal haemoglobin levels has been investigated. This has scarcely altered the haemoglobin percentages of men, but has increased the values for women by 4–17 per cent, and a mean rise of over 10 per cent, has been observed.

From time to time workers in various laboratories have published details of diets capable of maintaining their respective rat colonies in good health and supplying reasonably uniform animals for laboratory requirements. In response to enquiries regarding our feeding methods, the present note records the stock diet used at this Institute.

1. Streptolysin production by twenty-seven strains of haemolytic streptococci grown in a special buffered glucose serum-free broth has been compared and a very marked variation noted.

2. The anti-streptolysin titres in healthy individuals and in others at the commencement of illness showed a pronounced variation.

3. Throat infections with S. haemolyticus usually produced a rise in the level of circulating anti-streptolysin in the patients' blood, and this could be considered diagnostically significant.

4. Throat infections with haemolytic streptococci showed rather more rapid production and higher titres of anti-streptolysin than did skin infections such as erysipelas, and both throat and skin infections were greatly superior to uterine infections in this respect.

5. Neither the level of circulating anti-streptolysin at the commencement of infection nor the rate and height of response could be shown to have any bearing on the severity of the disease, except that a poor anti-streptolysin response was found in certain cases of relapses and toxic complications of throat infections. This appeared, however, to be merely indicative of a general poor antitoxic response and not to have any meaning by itself, except that in certain arthritic cases where the question of its importance was more open. No correlation whatsoever was noted between anti-streptolysin response and relapses and septic complications in erysipelas.

6. In general the anti-streptolysin response in infection appeared to depend more on the individual than on the site or severity of infection.

A comparison of Webster's selected, genetically heterogeneous resistant and non-resistant mice (here called mice A and B) has been made with two pure lines of mice (here called D and E) which were discovered to be similarly resistant and non-resistant to certain bacterial infections. In both cases, resistance and non-resistance were very marked characteristics when the infection in question was intraperitoneal inoculation with an organism of the Salmonella group; when the infective test dose consisted of intraperitoneal inoculations with a Pasteurella or Pneumococcus or of intracranial inoculation with the virus of louping-ill, these characteristics were no longer maintained, there being no certain difference in the mortality rates of the four mice lines.

In an attempt to discover some factor which might help to explain the very notable differences in resistance to Salmonella infection which exist between these mouse lines, the normal antibody content of their sera was investigated.

In experiments modelled on the bactericidal test, but possibly assessing rather the power of the sera to inhibit growth, it has been shown that both resistant races A and D possess this power to a much greater extent than do the two non-resistant races B and E.

A further examination was the estimation of the antibody response after inoculation with killed Salmonella vaccine. So far as mouse numbers permit of judgment it was seen that the resistant race A produced a higher mean titre of H agglutinin than the non-resistant races B and E.

At present the coli titre of water is almost universally determined by fermentation tests in sugar-containing media; the fermentation method of Eijkman (glucose-peptone solution at 46°2) and that of Bulir (neutral-red mannite bouillon at 46°) are current in many European countries, while in America fermentation in lactose bouillon at 37° is the standard test. Fermentation tests at 37° in lactose-containing media with the addition of bile and bactericidal dyes are also widely used (Great Britain, America).

In our previous paper in this Journal it was shown that the temperature of 46°C.1 recommended by Eijkman and Bulir in their fermentation test is excessively high, as in water cultures it has a destructive effect on Bact. coli. This was in accordance with the previous work of Brown and Skinner (1930) and Skinner and Brown (1934). At the same time we were able to show that in cultures in Bulir's medium at 43° not only is the destructive effect of the excessively high temperature on Bact. coli removed but the reproduction and fermentation activity of this organism is distinctly stimulated. At 43° Eijkman's and Bulir's tests effectively distinguish between true Bact. coli communis and other strains.

The object of the inquiry reported upon in this paper was to determine whether there was any measurable association between the development of intelligence and the incidence of disease in school children.

Under the title “Is Cancer Mortality increasing or decreasing?” Wolff (1935) has discussed a problem of world-wide interest. He comes to the conclusion that, in German-speaking countries the risk of dying from cancer is not increasing in the sense that the ordinary man attaches to the phrase. He enquires whether the undoubted absolute increase in cancer mortality may not be a mere function of the ageing of the population, a feature common to all civilised countries; and he concludes that, for Berlin, the altered age structure of the population has caused the increase in the general rate of mortality from cancer, and that—taking certain other factors also into con sideration—it may fairly be concluded that in Berlin the rate of mortality from cancer has declined.

1. The strains of B. typhosus, which are inagglutinable, or non-sensitive to somatic O agglutinins, are virulent, whereas the agglutinable, or sensitive strains, show a low virulence.

2. Virulence and inagglutinability of strains seem to depend upon the presence in them of a virulence (Vi) antigen.

3. A considerable protective action, observed by means of active and passive immunisation, is exerted by the inagglutinable strain used (205 D), because it contains Vi antigen.

4. When the O and H agglutinins are eliminated through absorption, the agglutination reaction may serve to demonstrate in vitro the presence of the Vi antibody.

In reply to Gardner and Venkatraman's rejection of the use of biochemical reactions in the grouping of vibrios according to Heiberg's method, it is shown that in forty-five of the strains examined by Gardner and Venkatraman it is possible to exclude twenty-four as being classical cholera vibrios by means of fermentation reactions with certain sugars, i.e. mannose, saccharose and arabinose. The author believes that it is not possible to deny the value of such reactions in attempting to group vibrios. The constancy of the reactions is emphasised.

By careful investigation of the somatic antigens of the true cholera vibrios —the strains containing O factor I according to Gardner's grouping (1935)— it was found, as did Scholtens (1933), that the cholera vibrios may be divided into two serological groups: one containing the antigenic factor A and the other the antigenic factors AB.

This finding may be of importance in epidemiological investigations and in the preparation of vaccines.

Various writers (Burnet, 1928; Burnet and Conseil, 1929; Vercellara, 1929; Huddleson and Hallman, 1929; Meyer and Eddie, 1929,1930; and Weigmann, 1931) using strains of Brucella abortus, have shown that this species is very slightly pathogenic for certain species of monkeys, while Br. melitensis possesses a high degree of virulence for the same animal. I have conducted a few experiments with a view to confirming these results, using a bovine abortus and a human melitensis strain isolated in Tanganyika.