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PROCEDURE Forty-two boys, aged from 5 to 14 years, with scarlet fever were selected at the Willard Parker Hospital for these observations. (Girls were not included because of the difficulty of obtaining uncontaminated specimens of urine.) Twenty-two were treated with injections of moccasin venom (1:3,000) subcutaneously, and twenty others were used as controls, the division being arbitrary on admission of the patients. Patients who had received scarlet fever antitoxin were excluded.The administration of moccasin venom was begun on admission, usually on the second or third day of illness; the plan of treatment was to give courses of eight, twelve or sixteen injections. The dose for the first injection was 0.5 cc.; if there was no untoward reaction, 1 cc. was given daily thereafter until half the course was completed; the remainder was administered in doses of 1 cc. every other day. In most of the cases there was a

In a series of cases of acute nephritis in children studied on the Children's Medical Division at Bellevue Hospital in the past seven years, we have had the opportunity to observe the manifestations of this disease and to note its progress. Though we speak of it as a disease entity involving one organ, the kidney, it must be remembered that at least two distinct types of acute renal involvement may be present, depending on whether glomeruli or tubules are predominantly involved. The classification of acute nephritis on a purely clinical basis affords no great difficulty if one remains aware that no system of classification is absolute. A pure acute glomerular nephritis without tubular damage may be postulated, but it probably exists rarely, if at all. Capon1 said:It is a truism to state that when a child's kidneys become inflamed it is rare to find on histological examination that

Kottmann1 first described his test for thyroid activity in 1920. He had previously studied the serum in pregnancy, and from this work assumed that certain physicochemical differences must be present in the serums of patients suffering from thyroid dysfunction. Petersen, who first investigated the test in this country, thus describes the process:Because of the peculiar relation of iodin to the glandular metabolism, he (Kottmann) began his experiments with colloidal iodin preparations, using silver iodid for this purpose because of its well known photosensitivity. In the test as developed by him, certain phenomena commonly observed in photography play a rôle. Thus, when silver nitrate is added to potassium iodid, silver iodid is formed. In the presence of a protective colloid, the growth of the particles is retarded, depending on the protective property of the colloid used. In the photographic plate, a gelatin preparation is used for this purpose, and

DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS Differential diagnosis between the various forms of meningeal or central nervous system disease has not become simpler as our knowledge of the pathology and chemistry of these conditions has increased. While it is relatively easy to diagnose clinically the acute inflammatory or purulent types of disease from those of a less acutely inflammatory nature, the differentiation between the diseases comprising each group is still clinically and chemically confused. The clinical picture of epidemic, pneumococcal, influenzal or streptococci meningitis is, as a rule, distinct from that of epidemic encephalitis, anterior poliomyelitis, polioencephalitis or tuberculous meningitis.Bacteriologically, the distinction in the former group is clearly enough defined. Chemically, the evidence is less definite in both groups. Differentiation between meningitis and meningismus, tetany and certain types of birth injuries at times may be very difficult. The determination of the primary lesion in instances of combined cardiorenal and meningeal conditions is often