Survey of Antibody of Coxsackie B viruses was carried out on sera obtained in 1960-62 and 1977-80 in Gifu prefecture, Japan.
Positive rates of antibodies in infants aged 3-10 years in 1977-80 were much higher than those in infants in 1960-62. No remarkable differences in positive rates in infants aged over 11 years, between these periods, were recognized.
In 1960-62, 22% of children aged five Years were still seronegative against 5 types of Coxsackie B viruses, whereas in 1977-80 all children had one or more types of antibody by the age of five years.
It seems likely that from these data the aquisition of Coxsackie B virus infection became earier in childhood in these two decades in Gifu prefecture.

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A double blind comparative study was conducted by administering a daily 600 mg dose of MOM and a daily 1200 mg dose of JM as a reference drug in order to compare the efficacy, safety and usefulness between MOM and JM in acute tonsillitis.
The efficacy rate was 80.7% for the group treated with MOM and 87.5% for the group treared with JM. The difference in effectiveness was not statistically significant between the two groups.
The back-ground of MOM group was statistically comparable to JM group except forbody temperature on the initial day and pharyngalgia as a basis of diagnosis.
As to side effects, only mild gastro-intestinal disorders were observed in both groups.
In view of the results, MOM would have comparable clinical efficacy to JM at half as much dose as JM for the treatment of acute tonsillitis.

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Maintenance of neutralizing (Nt) antibody to Japanese Encephalitis virus was investigated with the students at H Senior High School for three successive years from 1978 to 1980, immediately after releasing from the booster of the vaccine.
Nt antibody titration with 361 sera from the subjects was made on the primary chick embryo cell culture against JaGAr^#01 strain using the 50% plaque reduction method. The rate of Nt antibody titer less than 1: 10 and the cumulative frequency distribution of the titer at 1: 100 were 17.6% and 71.3% with the first grade, 24.2% and 77.6% with the second grade, and 25.0% and 81.8% with the third grade of the students, respectively. In most cases of the subjects could be followed up for three years in succession, Nt antibody titer decreased three years later to levels at approximately 1/2 or 1/3 of the primary one. The data obtained indicated that Nt antibody after releasing from the booster of the vaccine decreased rapidly within the first one or two years and then slowly.

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During the period of 1979 and 1981, 9 Pasteurella multocida, 2 Pasteurella ureae and 1 Pasteurella haemolytica (biovar A) were isolated from clinical specimens. The sources providedfor the 12 cultures included respiratory tract infection, peritonitis, and dog-bite wound. In all of specimens from the 12 cases, other bacteria have been absent or present in a very small numbers. The patients with respiratory tract infections and peritonitis had underlying conditions such as chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, gastric cancer, cholangiocarcinoma and chronic nasosinusitis.
Biochemical characteristics of the 12 Pasteurella isolates were described. P. multocida isolated from a dogbite wound was of & ldquo;dog type & rdquo; described by Frederiksen, but none of this biovar strain was not included in those from other sources.

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During the period of 1976-1981, a total 3, 598 strains of non-01 Vibrio cholerae submitted from various countries. All of the 3, 598 strains possessed biochemical characteristics confirmed to the minimal number of characters for the identification of V. cholerae with some exceptions in tests for lysine decarboxylase and ONPG. All the strains were agglutinated by an H-antiserum of V. cholerae.
Eighty-two serovars were recognized among 3, 230 out of the 3, 598 strains, whereas serovars of the remaining 368 were undeterminable because of their inagglutinability by any antisera or of the R mutant of the culture. Geographic differences in the distribution of serovars among strains were not observed, nor were there any significant difference between strains from human patients and those from other sources. However, usefulness of the serovar determination of non-01 V. cholerae in the epidemiological investigation was confirmed in several outbreak of infection with non-01 V. cholerae, in which a single serovar was associated with each patient involuved.
A total of 809 strains of V. cholerae including 335 01 V. cholerae and 474 non-01 vibrios were tested for their enterotoxigenicity by reversed passive latex agglutination (RPLA) assay. In 01 V. cholerae, 71% of human isolates and 30% of isolates from seafish and natural environments produced cholera toxin. In non-01 V. cholerae, on the other hand, only 16% of human isolates and 17% of isolates from other source were demonstrated to produce enterotoxin neutralized with cholera antitoxin. There was no correlation between serovars of non-01 V. cholerae and their ability to produce cholera toxin.
Recent status of contamination of natural environments with V. cholerae in industrial countries was discussed and an attention was given to them as potential sources of human infection.

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Recently, an attention of many investigators has been drawn to the difference between Salmonella paratyphi-B and Salmonella java. This increased interest in these two serovars is due to repeated isolation of the Java form of Salmonella from blood cultures of febrile patients. S. java had been designated to d-tartrate positive and no slime wall producing cultures possessing the same antigenic formula as that of S. paratyphi-B. The reason of distinguishing S. java from S. paratyphi-B was, as a rule, that the former produces gastroenteritis, while the latter causes a typhoid-like clinical picture. It had been suggested that S. java might be some serovar (s) of the Salmonella B group to which H-antigen b had been transduced. The present investigation was carried out to discriminate the propriety of distinguishing S. java from S. paratyphi-B using 192 recent isolates.
The 192 cultures possessed as antigenic formula 1, 4, 5, 12: b: 1, 2 and no monophasic cultures of the phase 1 H-antigen were included. When they were tested for d-tartrate fermentation by themethod of Kauffmann-Petersen, slime wall formation, and utilization of acetate as a sole carbon source, the 192 cultures were divided into 8 biovars. Of the 192 cultures, 39.6% and 40.6% were of typical S. paratyphi-B showing d-tartrate negative and slime wall positive properties and S. java giving d-tartrate positive and slime wall negative behaviors, respectively. However, the remaining 20% of the cultures were of intermediate biovars which could not be distinguished which.
Sources of the 192 cultures were contrasted to their ability to ferment d-tartrate. Not only d-tartrat negative cultures but also d-tartrate positive strains were found to originate in enteric fever, although the most of the both cultures were of isolates from patients with diarrheal illness, healthy persons, domestic animals, and surface water. Thus, no differences of pathogenicity and clinical picture of infection were detected between dtartrate positive and negative biovars of the cultures investigated.
The 192 cultures possessed as antigenic formula 1, 4, 5, 12: b: 1, 2 and no monophasic cultures of the phase 1 H-antigen were included. When they were tested for d-tartrate fermentation by themethod of Kauffmann-Petersen, slime wall formation, and utilization of acetate as a sole carbon source, the 192 cultures were divided into 8 biovars. Of the 192 cultures, 39.6% and 40.6% were of typical S. paratyphi-B showing d-tartrate negative and slime wall positive properties and S. java giving d-tartrate positive and slime wall negative behaviors, respectively. However, the remaining 20% of the cultures were of intermediate biovars which could not be distinguished which.
Sources of the 192 cultures were contrasted to their ability to ferment d-tartrate. Not only d-tartrat negative cultures but also d-tartrate positive strains were found to originate in enteric fever, although the most of the both cultures were of isolates from patients with diarrheal illness, healthy persons, domestic animals, and surface water. Thus, no differences of pathogenicity and clinical picture of infection were detected between dtartrate positive and negative biovars of the cultures investigated.

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In the present paper we describe the bacteriological feature of Vibrio vulnificus isolated from blood and lesions in the left upper extremity in a patient with cirrhosis of the liver, and its clinical finding.
Gram-negative bacterium isolated was consistent with Vibrio vulnificus described by Hollis et al. (1976). The organisms were sensitive to most antibiotics including Penicillin, Cephalosporin and Aminoglycoside by means of susceptibility test. The optimum temperature for culture of Vibrio vulnificus was in the range of 24-41 & deg;C, and the best growth was found to be at 37 & deg;Cwith a pepton solution containing 3% sodium chloride.
The patient was admitted because of chief complains of fever and diarrhea. The illness began with septicemia within 24 hours after eating dried fish. There was no history of a wound infection after exposure to seawater. The patient was found to have disseminated intravascular coagulation associated with septic shock on the basis of laboratory data on admission day, and died on 7 hospital days.

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Horseradish-peroxidase-conjugated Protein A (Staphylococcus aureus Cowan 1) was used in micro-ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) for detection of anti-varicella-zoster virus antibodies.
1) It was confirmed that Protein A-peroxidase conjugates showed the same grade of sensitivity for ELISA as and-human IgG (Fab) conjugates. Protein A conjugates are capable of binding effectively to the Fc portion of IgG from various mammalian species.
2) The hyperimmune antiserum (rabbit) was available as positive control combining Protein A conjugates. Amounts of sera from patients are usually so insufficient that diluted animal immune sera provide to obtein reproducible results.
3) The correlation coefficient between ELISA and complement fixation test was 0.78 (p<0.01).
4) ELISA was 50-100 times more sensitive than complement fixation test.

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A comparative clinical study of 9, 3′′-diacetylmidecamycin (MOM) with Midecamycin (MDM) was carried out by randomized double blind techniques in order to compare the clinical efficacy, side effects and usefulness in treatment of 218 patients with lower respiratory tract infections (mycoplasmal pneumonia, primary atypical pneumonia and mild bacterial pneumonia). The drug treatments used were 600 mg of MOM per day (111 cases) and 1, 200 mg of MDM per day (107 cases), and these doses were administered orally every day for 14 days whenever possible.
The results were as follows.
1) There were no particularly significant biases between the MOM and MDM administration groups in relation to the background factors of their respective patients.
2) The Evaluation Subcommittee reported the following results for the efficacy rates of these two drug treatments: 79.3% for the MOM group and 85.0% for the MDM group when all of the treated patients were considered. No significant differences were found between the treatment groups in relation to these data.
3) The physicians-in-charge also evaluated the efficacy of the drug treatments. In this case, the overall efficacy rates were 78.1% for the MOM group and 81.1% for the MDM group. With regard to the mycoplasmal pneumonia cases, the number of “excellent” efficacy cases was large in the MDM administration group, and the results in this treatment group were found to be significantly superior to the results in the MOM administration group.
4) The degrees of improvement achieved with regard to the various clinical symptoms and laboratory test results were found to be approximately the same for the two drug administration groups.
5) With regard to the microbiological results of the drug treatments, it was not possible to perform any evaluation because the number of isolated causative microorganisms was small.
6) The side effects recorded included gastrointestinal symptoms and elevated transaminase levels, but none of these side effects were severe. No significant differences were found between the two drug administration groups with regard to the side effects.
7) The usefulness of these drug treatments was evaluated. There were no significant differences between the MOM and MDM groups.
On the basis of the above results, it is clear that a 600 mg/day dosage of MOM, which is only half of the1, 200 mg/day dosage of MDM, gives nearly the same efficacy as MDM in the treatment of respiratory tract infections such as mycoplasmal pneumonia, PAP and mild bacterial pneumonia. Moreover, as with MDM, the incidence of side effects with MOM is low.
Accordingly, MOM can be expected to have a high degree of usefulness in the treatment of respiratory tract infections.

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During the 23-year period, 1956-1978, 3, 756 strains of group A streptococci isolated from the scarlet fever patients in Tokyo Metropolitan Toshima Hospital within one week after their admission were M-typed by the Lancefield's precipitin method. Type-specific anti-M sera of types 1, 3, 4, 6, and 12 were used throughout the period, and type 18 and type 22 antisera, from 1968 to 1978.
By the use of only seven typing-sera, 3, 756 strains or 86.1% of the whole specimens could be determined of their serotypes; type 12 (31.6%), type 6 (24.0%), type 4 (15.2%), type 3 (6.8%), type 1 (5.2%), type 18 (2.5%), and type 22 (0.8%).
The former three types, types 12, 6, and 4, were most worth attension not only because of their higher rate amounting over two-thirds of the total but also because of their characteristic features of epidemic patterns. When annual distributions of defferent serotypes expressed in per cents of the total were compared, type 6, at first, showed one large, long-term epidemics with the peak in 1959 and declined gradually until 1974 with some fluctuations meamwhile. Type 4 showed four peaks of short-term epidemics lasting a few years and having several-year intervals, and the four peaks seemed to form a long-term trend-variation with a peak in 1969. Type 12 behaved similar to type 4, four peaks of epidemics and one trend variation, though the peak of the trend variation was seen in 1974. Moreover, peaks of type 4 and type 12 epidemics appeared not concomitantly but alternately. It may be interesting that, during the 23-year period, the prevalent serotypes exhibited one each of long-term epidemic trend, either epidemics per se or trend variation, resulting in gross alterations of dominant serotype with intervals of 5-10 years. The long-term epidemic trend of a serotype seemed to take the direction of decline after occurrence of such epidemics as the serotype occupied the majority of annual isolates.

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