Bray has previously described [this Bulletin, 1945, v. 20, 764] a particular serological type of Bact. coli which he isolated from the faeces of 95 per cent. of infants with non-specific gastro-enteritis in 1943. Organisms of the same or a closely related sero-løgiçal type were isolated from 87.5 per cent. of 40 infants (mean age 5 months) with diarrhoea during 1945, and from only 4 per cent. of 80 infants without diarrhoea in the same hospital wards. Neither H nor a antigens appeared to be concerned in the agglutination tests used in identification; slide-agglutination was used, positive results being confirmed by tube tests.

The diarrhoeal cases had a high mortality (28 per cent.). They occurred in the warmer weather in bottle-fed infants, and were characterized clinically by a seminal smell. It would seem that in these cases a particular type of Bact. coli, rarely found in normal children, tends to predominate in the gut. It is, however, not known whether this organism has any causative connexion with the disease. JC Cruickshank.