This laboratory has been making effort to grasp the real state of enterovirus infections in the city population employing virological as well as serological means. And several reportshave already been made by us along this line.
This report is mainly concerned with the isolation of enteroviruses and serological turnout in pediatric patients who visited local practitioners' officies or general hospital in Matsue city between April and October 1973 and were diagnosed or suspected as acute enterovirus infections.
The results were summarized as follows:
1) There were many of patients who were diagnosed or suspected hand, foot and mouth diseaseor aseptic meningitis in this period. Type of isolated virus and its number: Coxsackie (Cox.) A type 9 (14 in number); Cox. B type 4 (2); Cox. B type 5 (5); echovirus type 22 (1); echovirus type 25 (1); untypable (93).
2) The outbreak of two disease were occurred in the period from June to August. Some examples were that hand, foot and mouth disease was accompanied with aseptic meningitis in some patient. Or some that aseptic meningitis was occured immediately after recovering from hand, foot and mouth disease.
3) Many patients of hand, foot and mouth disease and aseptic meningitis were the ages of 0-2
4) The 107 strains: H-M/73 neutralized by some antiserum which made from isolated virus from a patient diagnosed as hand, foot and mouth disease in 1973 suggested that they were not or a little concerned in Cox. A type 16 proto type in our neutralization test by plaque reduction test.
5) H-M/73 strains were isolated 70 strains out of 82 positive materials from throat swabs, 2 out of 3 positive from feces, 1 out of 1 positive from vesicular fluids of hand, foot and mouth disease patients. And these were isolated 11 out of 22 positive from feces, 1 out of 1 positive from throat swabs of aseptic meningitis patients. Out of their cerebrospinal fluids, 5 strains of Cox. A type 9 and 2 strains of Cox. B type 5 were isolated.
6) In 11 pair sera samples obtained from the patients of hand, foot and mouth disease or aseptic meningitis, one sample showed the rise of neutralization anti body for H-M/73 strain, and no sample for Cox. A type 16 proto type.
7) We have been examining to prove the H-M/73 strain immunologically and viologically which considered the important cause of the small epidemic of hand, foot and mouth disease in 1973.

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A total of 221 inhabitants in Tokyo and its suburbs was tested for Leptospira agglutination titer, and the followings were found:
1) If 1: 80 and higher titers were defined as positive, the rate of positive Leptospira reaction was 16.3% in the inhabitants in Tokyo and its suburbs.
2) The rate of positive Leptospira reaction was higher with age, and the higher the age, the larger was the number of specimens with high antibody titers.
3) The rate of positive reaction was 11 % in male subjects, and 21.5% in females.
4) When the subjects with positive reaction were classified by the strains of Leptospira, the positive rate with L. icterohaemorrhagiae was the highest, followed by that with L. australis and L. hebdomadis. In addition, there were one subjects with positive L. autumnalis and another with positive L. canicola. The latter was suspected of cross reaction with L. icterohaemorrhagiae. There were two subjects who were suspected of superinfection with two to three Leptospira strains.
5) The positive rate of 33.3% observed in Saitama Prefecture was the highest among Tokyo and its suburbs, followed by 15.1% in the 23 wards of Tokyo (the old city of Tokyo), 12.5% in the other areas of Tokyo, and 8.3% in Kanagawa Prefecture. It was in Suginami Ward that the highest positive rate was observed among the 23 wards of Tokyo, followed by the rates in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Toshima, Edogawa, Nerima and Setagaya Wards in the said sequence.
6) A total of 179 patients of endophthalmitis of unknown causes was tested for Leptospira agglutination. However, no characteristic eye symptoms which were common with patients with positive Leptospira agglutination titer were found. No specificity was observed in the eye symptoms classified by Leptospira strains.
7) In view of the facts that the positive subjects had no past history of definite Leptospira infection, that when the subjects were classified by occupation, housewives accounted for the majority, and that the rate of positive subjects was higher with age, it was surmised that the route of Leptospira infection in urban inhabitants would be somewhat different from that in rural districts.

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Urinary tract infection in children is a world-wide problem and some management is required in correct bacteriological diagnosis. Recently, dip-slide culture method is conveniently used in Europe for systematic screening of bacteriuria and its reliability for detection of bacteriuria has been reported by many investigators.
The authors tested the accuracy of a dip-slide system “Uromedium” developed in our country by comparing the results with that from the pour-plate method.
In 57 to 100 percent of 545 cases, results obtained from Uromedium were accorded with that from the pour-plate method, and the specificity of Uromedium was estimated 73 percent. Bacterial numbers in urine specimens determined by both method ranged below 102 to over 106 per ml and several species of gram-positive cocci, gram-negative bacilli, and fungus were isolated. For all the organisms linear regressive lines were obtained between bacterial numbers determined by both methods and the coefficients (γ) were 0.82 to 0.98. These findings suggest that “Uromedium” is a satisfactory method for systematic screening of bacteriuria and diagnosis of urinary tract infection.

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The present study was undertaken to investigate the growth behavior of C. perfringens (spore) in chicken soup and in boiled fish paste (kamaboko), using six heat-resistant strains isolated from patients or foods with food poisoning. The chicken soup used in this experimentation was composed of 10% minced fowl meat, cooked in water containing 3% sugar and 2% salt, and the boiled fish paste made up of 100 gm of minced fish meat with 6 gm of starch, 4 gm of salt, 3 gm of sugar and 2.4 ml of “mirin”(sweet flavoring sake) added to it. The results of these experiments are summarized as follows:
1. The spore of C. perfringens was capable of growing in chicken soup at temperature range 25°C-45°C. Within the range 30°C-45°C the growth of the organism was fairly more rapid than 25°C At 45°C, fastest growth was obtaind, an inoculum of 10² spores per ml in soup reached a level as high as 10⁵ viable cell per ml in about 7 hours. No growth occurred at 20°Cor 50°C
2. Sugar contained in the chicken soup was noted to promote the growth of C. perfringens. After reaching the peak of growth, however, the organisms died out rapidly and formed no spores. With the growth of the organism, the soup rapidily became acidified (at pH 4.4 approx.). The higher the temperature of incubation, the faster did the organism die out and the soup show acidification.
3. The growth of C. perfringens was obtained in chicken soup containing 0-5%(w/v) of NaCl within 24 hours at 30°C. The growth was not inhibited by NaCl concentrations of 2-3%, but inhibited by 5%. In a soup containing 6% of NaC1 no growth occurred within 96 hours at 30°C. The organism was able to grow in soup at pH 5.0 or at pH 9.0, but failed to grow at pH 4.5.
4. The spore of C. perfringens was able to grow in boiled fish paste maintained at 30°C, and showing increased viable cell count of 23 from 2.8×107 per gram. In contrast, neither outgrowth nor death of C. perfringens spores occurred in boiled fish paste containing 2.5μEg of synthetic preservative “furylfuramide” per gram

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