Clinical aspects of 53 cases of childhood empyema admitted to the pediatric ward in our hospital from January 1965 to May 1977 were studid and summarized as follows.
1) The overall frequency of empyema in all admission during this period was 0.9%, butwas slightly increasing since 1970. The age distribution of the patients revealed that 71.7% were the children of 0-2 years of age. There was no apprecialbe difference in sexes and in sides imvolved. Seasonal fluctuation was remarkable, i.e. 39 cases from January to June and 14 cases from July to December.
2) The annual changes of the causative agents during this period seem to suggest that there were increasing not only the cases due to staph. aureus but also the negativecultured. Twentynine of 53 cases (54.7%) were the positive-cultured and of these 29 cases, 19 (65.5%) were caused by staph. aureus. As to the relationship between the causative agents and the age, most of the positivecultured were 0-2 years of age, but no age difference was seen in the negative-cultured. The majority of staphylococcal isolates was resistant to PCG and macrolides, and about a half of them was also resistant to TC, SM and ABPC.
3) Death occurred in 4 of 53 cases, average case fatality rate was 7.5% and 16.7% in the cases of 0-2 years of age due to staph. aureus (3 of 18 cases). The cases due to staph. aureus were liable to have complication such as pneumothorax, surgical treatment such as thoracentesis and tube-thoracostomy and a long period of hospitalization compared with the negative-cultured cases.

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Serratia marcescens strains isolated from various clinical materials and several places in Nagasaki University hospital during the period from April, 1970 to March, 1976 were classified by bacteriocin (marcescin) production typing by means of the agar cross streaking method (no induction and 8 indicators used). The epidemiological analyses of these results were carried out.
1) Five hundred and fifty four isolates (333 from urine, 144 from sputum, 51 from pus & exsudate, 8 from bile and 18 from others) in the above period were classified into 26 types by bacteriocin typing and those strains had a relatively charcteristic distribution in bacteriocin types according to each clinical material.
2) The epidemiological investigations were performed using the isolates obtained from the patients and places in the hospital during the period of 15 months from January, 1975 to March, 1976. Each ward had a distinctive distribution in bacteriocin types of the isolates.
The bacterial flora in 100 places of each ward was examined; 5 strains of Serratia marcescens from the gynecologycal ward (4 from a washroom, 1 from a treatment room) and 5 from the urological ward (2 from a washroom, 2 from a floor, 1 from a bed) were obtained. The bacteriocin types of themwere included in main types of the isolates from the patients admitted to both wards except 1 strain from the treatment room of the gynecological ward.
3) Six patients were studied for comparison of the bacteriocin typing of Serratia marcescens isolated from several materials taken from the same patints. Three out of these patients demonstrated the identical bacteriocin type even in different materials individually, but the others showed the different bacteriocin type of Serratia marcescens.
Furthermore, the state of keeping, isolation and communicalbe form of Serratia marcescens among the hospitalized patients were discussed by bacteriocin typing.

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An extensive epidemic of rubella occured in Aichi prefecture between the spring of 1975 and the same season of 1977.
During this period, hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test to rubella was performed on more than 10, 000 women in our laboratory. 35 of the tested women showed significant rise in HI antibodies in the second sera compared with the first.
On the basis of titers of the first sera antibodies, 35 women were classified into two groups: A group (24 of the 35 women) showed titers of antibodies of <1: 8; B group (11 of the 35 women) had already titers of antibodies of 1: 8-1: 32.
Epidemiological survey was carried out al these women. In order to detect IgM antibodies to rubella, second sera of the 35 women were treated with protein A which was obtained from Staphylococcus aureus, Cowan I strain. From the results of epidemiological survey, we knew that 26 of the 35 women (21 of the A group, 5 of the B) had rash, and 7 (one of the A group, 6 of the B) had not rash. But, 2 of the A group were uncertain (with or without rash).
After protein A treatment, IgM antibodies were demonstrated in 22 cases of the A group and 6 cases of the B. The other hand, IgM antibodies were not observed in 2 cases of the A groupand 5 cases of the B. These data suggested that 26 of the 35 women were apparent infection to rubella, 2 were inapparent, 2 were uncertain and 5 other were reinfection.

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The serological grouping of hemolytic streptococci was carried out by the phadebact streptococcus test. The method is a rapid slide co-agglutination test for the differentiation of Lancefield groups A, B, C and G.
Every reagent has shown good specificity in grouping, except some multiple-agglutination reactions. These reactions were almost eliminated in using BBL Todd-Hewitt broth in stead of Pifco Todd-Hewitt broth.
The results of this study indicate that the Phadebact streptococcus test offers the clinical laboratory an accurate, reliable, and easy to use method for serological grouping of hemolytic streptococci.

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