In a survey of enterovirus and adenovirus excretion in normal children in 1961–62, 25,600 faecal specimens were examined, 25,589 of them in cell culture and 17,596 in newborn mice.

Polioviruses were isolated from 156 (0·86%) specimens before Sabin vaccination was introduced in February 1962 and from 389 (5·27%) specimens after this. Coxsackie A viruses were isolated from 894 (5·08%) specimens, Coxsackie B viruses from 196 (0·77%), echoviruses from 278 (1·09%) and adenoviruses from 128 (0·50%).

The isolation rates of these viruses varied with sex, age, geographical area, type of local authority area and season.

The isolation rate of polioviruses before the introduction of Sabin vaccination was the same as in a previous survey carried out in 1957–58, although the rate was lower in Salk vaccinated children than in unvaccinated children. After Sabin vaccination began the isolation rate increased and Type 3 virus replaced Type 1 virus as the most prevalent virus type.

A co-operative study was made of the incidence of infection acquired by patients in medical wards. Records were collected of 6740 admissions to 21 wards in 13 hospitals.

There were 384 clinical infections (5·7 per 100 patients admitted); 135 of them (35%) were infections of the lower respiratory tract, 72 (19%) were septic skin lesions or infected wounds, and 81 (21%) were urinary tract infections.

Infection was believed to have contributed to the death of 59 patients—17% of those infected or 8% of those dying in hospital. Nearly three-quarters of the deaths were attributed to ‘pneumonia’.

Acquired infections were most common and most severe at the extremes of age. There was an excess of males over females in staphylococcal infections and in infections of the lower respiratory tract, and of females over males in urinary tract infections.

The incidence of infection was above average in patients suffering from malignant disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, cerebral thrombosis and haemorrhage, and from diseases of the urinary tract and of the skin.

There were 110 acquired infections with Staph, aureus and 12 deaths were attributed to them. Over half of these infections were due to staphylococcal strains which caused only one clinical infection in a ward in the course of a year.

Pneumonia was difficult to diagnose in severely ill or moribund patients, and its clinical significance was hard to assess. It was not possible to obtain a reliable estimate of the part played by bacterial infection in its causation.

Determinations were made of the age distribution of antibody to swine virus and representatives of the various families of human influenza A virus in 1961–62 collections of human sera and paired sera from forty individuals taken in 1952 and 1963:

(a) The existence of cohorts of the population, each with a dominant antibody type related to strains of virus first encountered in childhood, was confirmed.

(b) The basic epidemiological pattern was similar to that previously detected in 1954. However, it seemed that antibody to swine virus had been reinforced but not antibody to A and A1 strains.

(c) Neutralizing and HI antibodies to A/Equine/Miami/63 virus were detected only in the sera of older people (65 years or over) collected in 1964. No antibodies were found to A/Equine/Prague/56 or two duck viruses.

(d) Relatively constant levels of antibody to A, A1 and A 2 viruses were present in sera from aged persons but antibody to swine virus diminished with age. This could be attributed to a lack of swine antibody in the older females.

Rappaport's magnesium chloride/malachite green medium was employed in the cultural examination of 2476 faecal specimens in parallel with selenite F broth enrichment and direct plate culture on deoxycholate citrate agar. The use of the medium increased the salmonella isolation rate by 26% over the number of isolations from the other two methods, but proved of no additional value in the isolation of shigella organisms. The addition of Rappaport medium is recommended in routine faecal examination.

Cattle were infected with rinderpest virus by housing them for 24 hr. in stalls containing donor animals which had been reacting to the disease for 3–5 days. They were then transferred to individual clean stalls and killed on the 2nd to 10th days following first exposure. Various tissues were collected, particularly those of the upper and lower respiratory tracts, and their virus content was estimated in calf-kidney tissue cultures.

Virus was recovered from 15 of 35 animals tested and in eight of these generalization had occurred, although only two had begun to show a pyrexial response. The stage of the infection could not be predicted from the time that had elapsed following exposure, since early, limited proliferation was encountered on the 3rd to the 10th days.

It was considered that seven animals gave indications of the pathways by which natural infection had occurred. In each of these virus proliferation was established very early in the pharyngeal lymph node; in three the submaxillary lymph node was similarly involved and in four the palatal tonsil. It was suggested that these data probably indicated that infection always occurred via the upper respiratory tract.

In three cases virus titres were highest in the bronchial or costocervical lymph nodes; this was construed as evidence for the additional involvement of the lower respiratory tract in primary infection.

No infectivity could be demonstrated in the mucosae or lung parenchyma associated with the above-mentioned lymph nodes and this, together with previously published data, was accepted as strong presumptive evidence that the infecting virus passes through the mucosae without producing a local lesion or proliferating there. These results were compared briefly with those of Bedson & Duckworth (1963) for rabbit pox.

The carriage of Trichophyton mentagrophytes (Robin) Blanchard by symptomfree laboratory mice has been described by La Touche (1957), Dolan, Kligman, Kobylinski & Motsavage (1958) and Mackenzie (1961). It may often be only the development of infections in the animal handlers which draws attention to the carriage of the fungus by the mice. These ringworm infections in man may take the form of a rapidly developing eczematous and vesicular lesion and the mouse carrier constitutes a significant hazard to the laboratory animal worker.

1. The bacteriology of the pus from 79 cases of tropical pyomyositis has been studied. In 74 cases Staphylococcus aureus was isolated in pure culture.

2. Phage typing showed that 60% of the pyomyositis strains belonged to phage Group II as compared with 22% for miscellaneous hospital infections and 21% for nasal carrier strains.

3. A high proportion of the Group II strains from pyomyositis were found to be penicillin resistant and it is thought that this is unlikely to be due to the use of penicillin therapeutically but is probably a natural characteristic of the strains.

4. Other suggested aetiological factors in pyomyositis such as leptospirosis and syphilis have been investigated but no association has been found.

5. The phage types of staphylococci found in Uganda have been compared with those reported from England and Australia and found not to be strikingly different.

Inactivated vaccinia virus vaccines were prepared from purified virus inactivated by either formalin, hydroxylamine or heat. The immunogenicity of these vaccines was assessed in rabbits by measurement of virus neutralizing antibody following each of two inoculations. It was concluded that inactivated vaccinia virus stimulates the production of neutralizing antibody and that the most important single factor in this immunogenicity is the concentration of virus in the vaccine. Vaccines prepared from virus suspensions containing 107 to 108 pfu/ml. before inactivation give variable antibody responses.

1. A description is given of the outbreak of typhoid fever in Zermatt in 1963.

2. There were 437 cases and three deaths, a case fatality rate of 0·7%.

3. Information from 260 tourists established that the initiation of infection was explosive and allowed the period of infection to be determined.

4. The mean incubation period of various tourist fractions was probably between 16 and 18 days but was found to be significantly longer (20–21 days) for hotel employees.

5. The evidence favours a waterborne outbreak. Studies of the water supply showed that the catchment area and the surface streams and their water were liable to contamination.

6. One particular stream, the Zmuttbach, constituted a greater danger than the remainder.

7. The water purification at the treatment station was inadequate; in particular the holding time for chlorination was too short, and the required concentration of 0·2 p.p.m. was not reached consistently. In addition, there were periods during which completely unchlorinated water reached the general supply.

8. It was discovered, some months after the epidemic, that there was leakage of sewage, probably of long standing, into the chlorination tank. This seems to be the most likely source of the water contamination.

9. The typhoid excretor responsible for the outbreak was not discovered.