G. V. Marinetti has reported phospholipase A of snake venom to cause clearing of a suspension of egg yolk. Based on this fact the rapid and convenient assay method for phospholipase A has been studied. The present assay method is affected by various factors such as pH, ion and ionic strength of the reaction mixture, but under well controlled conditions it is useful and highly sensitive. This method, however, has a disadvantage that the standardization of the assay unit during the long course of the test is very difficult.

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Phospholipase A [EC 3.1.1.4] was purified from the venom of Habu (Trimeresurus flavoviridis) by the gel filtration on Sephadex G-100 and the column chromatographies on CM-cellulose, with a 3.7% over-all yield and a 7.1-fold increase in the specific activity. The purified enzyme was proved to be homogeneous by the disc electrophoresis. And the gel filtration on a Sepharose 6B column of the purified enzyme indicated a molecular weight of arround 26, 000. The purified enzyme was caused immediate loss of the activity by the addition of EDTA. But the activity was recovered by the addition of excess CaC12 in the presence of EDTA and no activity was recovered by the addition of Mg⁺⁺, Cd⁺⁺ and Zn⁺⁺, respectively, in the place of Ca⁺⁺.

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In order to clarify the present situation of endemic onchocerciasis in Guatemala, the authors carried out epidemiological studies in several endemic areas during the period between Nov. 1973 and Jan., 1974. The microfilaria positive rates for Fincas Monte de oro, Nimaya and Milan were 58.5%, 67.6% and 46.1%, respectively. There was a definite difference in the rate of onchocercal infection between males and females. In male children, the microfilaria positive rate was much higher than in corresponding females, probably due to their living habits. Onchocercomatas were frequently found in younger persons and it was noted that half of the nodules found in the inhabitants in Finca Nimaya were located in the iliac region. In 3 Fincas, the vector black flies were captured using human baits at different times of the day; the flies were most actively biting between 0900 and 1500 hours. Among the flies collected, S. ochraceum was the most dominant species, and the rest included S. metallicum, S. callidum and S. exiguum. There was no relationship between microfilaria densities in infected persons at different times of the day and the biting density of S. ochraceum. It was shown that approximately one-half of the captured flies were caught on the lower part of the body. Four microfilaria positives were examined with Mazzotti test. In this brief survey, it is concluded that O. volvulus is still actively transmitted in endemic foci in Guatemala.

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The resistant level of the houseflies to the several kinds of insecticides, pyrethrins, allethrin, Sumithion (fenitrothion), diazinon, DDVP, Baytex, γ-BHC and DDT, were examined on the sixteen strains collected in Indonesia. It was found that many housefly colonies in Indonesia showed higher susceptibility to these insecticides than the Takatsuki strain, especially the flies collected in Ambon, Celebes, Flores, Bali, Timor and Lombok Islands were found to be high susceptible for 9 insecticides. A few samples of flies from Indonesia showed tolerant to Sumithion, especially high LD₅₀ values were obtained in the flies from 3 places of Jakarta city (0.615, 0.560 and 0.407 μg, respectively) and from Kabanjahe, Sumatra (0.435 μg). These LD50 values were much higher than the value of Takatsuki strain (0.088 μg).

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From 1955 through 1970 the transition of filarial symptomatic patients in a town of Bonotsu, located on the southernmost part of Satsuma peninsular, Kagoshima prefecture, had been investigated. The investigations showed that number of hydrocele and chyluria patients had a tendency of decrease, though new such cases occurred at times. New cases of elephantiasis were not found as far as our investigations were concerned and the number of the disease reduced by half in ten years. A case of huge elephantiasis of the scrotum and the penis we saw lately is described. The patient is a male, 44 years old, who lives in Tokunoshima, Oshima-gun, Kagoshima prefecture. The first filarial fever attack was noticed when he was 14 years old and since then the attack would usually occur after labor once or twice a month. The patient's penis had started to increase in size gradually when he was 17 years old and at 34 it grew as low as his knee joints. Afterwards the patient's penis has grown as long as his legs without being accompanied by episodes of fever attacks or chyluria. The patient's waist is 66.3 cm (circumference) and the largest part of the scrotum 76.8 cm (circumference), which shows the scrotum is larger than the patient's waist by more than 10.0 cm. The length of the penis is 58.0 cm; the smallest part, coronary sulcus, 43.5 cm. A circumference of the glans penis is 50.5 cm. Total weight of the penis and the scrotum amounts to about 18.5 kg, which forms one-third the body weight, in contrast with the patient's height (142.0 cm) and body weight (52.6 kg). We report scrotal elephantiasis which is accompanied by penile elephantiasis, that is thought to be very rare.

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