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(4) Publications.-
"A New Microscope Adapter for the Hand Spectroscope", by A. V. Greaves, Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine, Vol. XIX, No. 7, April, 1934.
(5) Research.-Owing to the absence of the writer on leave for the greater part of the year little is to be recorded under this head. The work on Flexner dysentery organisms continued as far as the collection and typing of strains was concerned.
Work on culture media for the growth of the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus continued. The medium which was devised last year was put through an extended trial in parallel with Loeffler's medium on all routine cultures. The results have been encouraging enough to warrant a continuance with a view to making the study more complete.
Commencing at the end of January all bloods forwarded for Widal tests were also subjected to clot culture for the typhoid group of organisms. The results for the year were interesting. 799 cultures were done; of these 209 gave a positive Widal with a negative culture, 39 gave both positive Widal and positive growth, while 9 gave negative Widals with positive growth. That is, in a series of 257 cases of Enteric fever 3.50% would have been missed had not a culture been made. This is a figure which cannot be neglected, and consequently all bloods forwarded to us for diagnostic Widal test are now cultured in addition. The figure for positive growths would no doubt be larger still were it not for the fact that a great many specimens are received in the old-fashioned tiny Widal tubes, which give such a small clot that the chances of growing organisms from it are definitely small. (The positive cultures from Widal tubes were actually 2% fewer than were obtained from test tubes).
Further material was collected for Professor Van Dyke of Peiping Union Medical College, who is pursuing his studies of pituitary glands. Professor Hoeppli, to whom Clonorchis infested liver tissue has been sent for some time past, has reported on his work in an article entitled "Histological Changes in the Liver of Sixty-six Chinese Infected with Clonorchis Sinensis" appearing in the Chinese Medical Journal, Vol. XLVII, 1933.
(6) General. The necessity for increased room for work at the Institute does not become less as time goes on, and our present cramped condition leads to a more insistent demand than ever for increased space. As it seems more and more unlikely that new quarters will be built, our only hope for it lies in some addition to our present building. How this is to be accomplished in our present geographical surroundings is something of a problem but it will have to be faced.