A composite skin extract was prepared from the puffer fish Spheroides maculatus and the LD50 determined. It was found that the toxin does not affect the acetylcholinesterase of the erythrocyte as others have concluded. Alteration of the sex hormones or use of 100 per cent oxygen increased the lethality of the toxin. Picrotoxin, methylene blue, pentobarbital or sodium succinate did not alter the LD50. Pentobarbital with sodium succinate decreases lethality. Strychnine or pralidoxime with atropine were the most effective antidotes (90 per cent).

Ciguatera poisoning in five people was produced by a specimen of Caranx latus, horse-eye jack. Halstead-type extracts were prepared from this fish and injected into mice and chicks. Chicks were also fed the flesh. There were no apparent effects in either the mice or the chicks. Four cats were fed varying amounts of either the fresh or broiled fish. One of the cats showed no effect from two feedings and another cat developed some muscular weakness in the hind legs. The third cat developed pronounced muscular weakness in the hind legs. The fourth cat fed the flesh became depressed, body temperature decreased and the animal died on the sixth day. Control feeding of Haemulon or Caranx hippos to these cats had no effect.

Skin, muscle, liver, and gonadal extracts of the Atlantic puffer, Spheroides maculatus were assayed for toxicity in white mice. Extracts were injected intraperitoneally and were administered in the amounts of 1 ml per 20 g of body weight. The LD50 of a composite skin extract, administered intraperitoneally in progressive doses per 20 g of body weight, was determined for white rats, white mice, chicks and frogs (Rana pipiens), while a LD50 of a composite muscle extract was determined for the pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides.

because the latter have less immunity and "spend much of their time in homogeneous groups." If a beginning is to be made outside the hospital sphere the school is certainly the place for it. He also points out that measures would be justified during a pandemic of a new or rare infection-or, it might be added, during a severe epidemic of any infection-which are not called for under ordinary conditions. It is disappointing that all this effort should apparently have brought us no nearer to diminishing the incidence of the common cold, or to improving the sanitary quality of the atmosphere in public places. Colds and other nonspecific infections of the -air passages are far more important in terms of discomfort and loss of time and efficiency than any of the more dangerous infections which we are now so well able to control. Pulvertaft is probably right in concluding that conditions in crowded public transport vehicles are sometimes such that no known method of air sterilization could possibly operate. But his argument that constant exposure to infection is necessary to immunity, and therefore, presumably, that conditions may just as well be left as they are, is a counsel of despair. -It is a poor sort of immunity that is bought at the cost of two or three colds per annum, which are the lot of the average individual. That these are natural and inevitable under ulrban conditions we refuse to believe. It is of course not yet by any means certain that aerial transmission is the only, or even the most important, factor in the spread of the common cold. In so far as it is, better air sanitation in densely populated places is much to be desired, and the efforts of the past twelve years will not have attained full success until this aim has been achieved.