The spores of B. anthracis are well known to be very resistant, and able to survive for long periods, especially when dry. Some of the older workers have quoted instances of their long survival, but none seem to have ascertained the limit of their survival under definite conditions.

It is an undisputed fact that various diseases have been transmitted by the water of swimming baths, and although such cases have not been very frequently recorded it is nevertheless important that steps should be taken to prevent their occurrence. This can only be done by maintaining a standard of purity of the bath water similar to drinking water.

It is evident that the water of swimming ponds cannot be kept pure by the fill and empty system, but should be subjected to a process of continuous filtration combined with aeration and chlorination.

In order to maintain the standard of purity thus obtained it is necessary that a strict supervision should be made of the bathers, and those who have any infectious condition should not be permitted to use the pond.

Regulations similar to those suggested by the American Public Health Association should be made and enforced.

The series of family budget enquiries which have been carried out in Denmark during the last fifty years enable us now to form a fairly clear idea of the food consumption both in the towns and in the rural districts, in the well-to-do homes as well as amongst the poor.

1. Beriberi occurring on a white-flour staple is similar to that occurring on a rice staple.

2. Under the difficult climatic conditions of North Newfoundland and Labrador, families are obliged to buy food stores in November or December to last until the following May or June. When poverty prevents a sufficient variety of foodstuffs, and calories are the foremost consideration, white flour with few extras forms the main dietary, and beriberi tends to occur in April, May or June. It occurs in families who have grown few vegetables and shot little game.

3. The disease attacks more men than women, and very rarely children between the ages of infancy and puberty. The age and sex incidences of beriberi are difficult of explanation and differ in different countries.

4. Infantile beriberi probably occurs in Newfoundland and Labrador, but is largely unrecognised.

5. The main cause of beriberi is vitamin B1 deficiency, but the diets of patients suffering from beriberi are deficient in other respects.

6. It is suggested that the infrequency of wet beriberi in Newfoundland may be due to the fact that wheat flour has a higher protein content than polished rice.

7. Since poverty and deficiency disease are rigidly associated, prevention is an economic rather than a medical problem.

8. Severe scurvy and rickets are not often met.

9. Functional hemeralopia or night-blindness occurs mainly during the summer among men. It occurs on a diet deficient in vitamin A, and is rapidly curable by vitamin A containing foods, a fact well known to the Newfound landers. The disease may occur in men taking a deficient diet for less than one month. Other evidences of vitamin A deficiency are lacking.

10. Tuberculosis, severe dental caries, functional stomach complaints and constipation are common. Gastric and duodenal ulcer, diabetes and obesity are rare.

A study of the agglutinin content of the sera of individuals who have suffered from attacks of Sonne dysentery has shown that in the majority of cases specific agglutinins are produced.

In a series of agglutination tests with sera from 138 normal individuals 24 per cent, were found to give a positive reaction in a dilution of 1 in 50 or greater.

The chief object of the research here recorded was to try and bring this Colony into line with other plague centres from which valuable figures on this subject have already been recorded.

It is greatly to be desired that the causes of the decline of tuberculosis, which has been so striking a feature in the history of that disease in recent times, should be clearly ascertained; for only through an understanding of their nature and relative importance can our efforts to accelerate that decline hope to succeed.

1. Two preparations of bacteriophage were used for the treatment of a number of cases of acute bacillary dysentery.

2. The types of B. dysenteriae encountered in 60 cases of acute bacillary dysentery are described. In the 60 cases investigated the causal bacillus was bacteriophagable with the standard bacteriophage in vitro in 48.

3. The cases are tabulated and no dramatic results due to the bacteriophage treatment are demonstrated.

4. Treatment of the bacteriophage with hydrochloric acid, in a concentration similar to that of the gastric juice, for 60 minutes did not alter the virulence of the bacteriophage.

5. It is shown that 25 per cent, autoclaved intestinal mucus in normal saline, and human blood serum, not inactivated, compare unfavourably with laboratory broth as a medium for bacteriophage action.

6. The results of giving bacteriophage by mouth to normal individuals, and to dysentery patients are described and discussed.

In recognition of the need for understanding, and for making proper allowances for differences in body growth and physical development during school life, it has been the custom at the Manchester Grammar School to take annual measurements of standing and sitting height, girth of chest, of upper and lower arm, and also range of vital capacity of all the boys amounting to about 1000 in number, and to compare their physical growth with their school attainments. The measurements are graded for each boy as regards height, weight, chest girth and vital capacity, in order to discover the rate and range of growth in each category, and see how far the growth in one category is commensurate with the growth in another. The grading in each category is expressed in time-increments of six months' growth above or below the normal boy of his age, so that, e.g. a boy who is a year ahead or a year behind the average boy of his age in height is graded + 2 or − 2 in height, and so forth. Similar and separate gradings are used for weight, chest girth and vital capacity. At the time of annual measurement, enquiry is also made into the physical activities in which each boy participates, e.g. the games he plays, his performance in the swimming bath, in the gymnasium, etc.

Summarising the results of this investigation, those set out in the first part of the paper are, on the whole, very gratifying. Making due allowances for difficulties of comparison, there is little doubt that entrants now are in a better condition than they were twenty years ago. The characters, e.g. general nutrition and state of teeth, for which there has been no improvement or actually a set back in recent years are those which might be expected to have been influenced by transitory conditions due to the war and are also those the measurement of which most closely depends upon the standard adopted; this standard has probably risen.

In the second part of the paper, I have shown that there is an intimate relation between various defects which develop before, sometimes long before, school age and defects or disabilities which are of grave importance during school life. How far one is dealing with environmental effects and how far with inborn weaknesses cannot, of course, be ascertained without further data; but it is clear that the care of the child before admission to school is a matter deserving as much attention as possible, even with respect to shortcomings often attributed to factors only coming into play during school age.

It will be convenient to summarise the results of the foregoing observations and the conclusions which appear justified by a comparison of results obtained by the two methods of standardisation under consideration, namely (1) cutaneous, on the human subject, and (2) intracutaneous (intradermal) on the guinea-pig.

1. In the absence of knowledge regarding the essential chemistry of tuberculin, a chemical method of standardisation is excluded.

2. The phenomena of allergic reactivity point to a biological basis for standardisation.

3. The allergic reactions have been studied in the sensitised animal and in the human tuberculised subject.

4. Tuberculins of unknown potency have been compared with a tuberculin of known potency which has been selected as standard.

5. Comparative observations have been made as between the standard and the unknown tuberculin, by (a) making use of different dilutions, and (6) assessing results in animals (sensitised) and in human (tuberculised) subjects.

6. In the sensitised guinea-pig the intracutaneous method has been used, and a definite procedure followed in the determination of results.

7. In the human tuberculised subject the cutaneous method has been used, and similar procedure followed for the determination of results. The method and results are illustrated in the text.

8. The results in the two sets of observations are definite and comparable. Both afford a basis for standardisation.

9. The average probable errors by the two methods are approximately equal, that is, the accuracy of the one method is approximately equal to that of the other.

10. If this be so, a strong plea may be advanced in favour of the human test. Shortly expressed: human (tuberculised) subjects are readily available for observation. The procedure involves little preparation, and the results are easily read with exactness. The tuberculin under test is to be used thereafter in relation to the human subject. This fact enhances the value of the test observations.

If it be objected that in intracutaneous injection the amount of tuberculin introduced is measured more precisely, it may fairly be maintained that the droplet application of tuberculin is limited to a sharply defined area of skin surface and, further, that the clear skin of the human subject allows of more accurate estimation of the diameters of the areas of reaction.

The present enquiry has shown that assays on a variety of human (tuberculised) subjects yield consistent results, and similarly, assays on various animals give consistent results. Yet the animal results are not always contistent with the human results. The explanation of the discrepancy is not very clear. It is not impossible that certain strains of tuberculin act in less degree on the human subject and in greater degree on the animal, and conversely. The occurrence of such differences might be misleading and even involve risk, if standardisation tests were limited to animals without control from observations on the human subject.

If we grant, as the records have shown, that the procedure in relation to the human subject is sound and is innocuous to the human subject of the test, much may be said for the simplicity of the method and for the clarity of results obtained. As the tuberculins under test are destined for use on human subjects—for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes—it would seem reasonable, and probably safer, to base the standardisation of tuberculin (for human purposes) on observations in relation to man.

The results of this investigation may be summarised as follows:

1. The qx or cage-age mortality curve of a herd increases rapidly to a maximum and thereafter descends to an approximately constant level which is much above the level of the qx for normal mice of ages within the range of real, physiological, age of animals living in the herds.

2. At the latest ages under observation the principal factor of mortality is still the specific factor, so that the advantage produced by selective mortality and active immunisation is brought to a standstill far above the zero line. Exposure in a herd under the conditions of these experiments will not produce an ultimate population fully resistant to the specific factor of infection.

3. It is probable that a large proportion, perhaps a majority, of the members of a herd become infected early in herd life, and gradually increase their degree of immunity because variations of environmental conditions, so far as these are measured by the general herd mortality, become less and less influential on the ultimate mortality of the exposed to risk the later the point in time chosen for measurement.

4. Study of the form of the age-mortality curve is still proceeding; at present we cannot offer an adequate mathematical description of it which takes due account of the biological factors requiring attention.

5. Quite provisionally, we attribute the difference in time of the maxima of the qx curves of Pasteurella and aertrycke epidemics to a difference of average interval between infection and death.