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An outbreak of gastroenteritis occurred in March-April 1981, in Wichita, Kansas, and involved more than 250 persons who drank raw milk from a single local dairy. Campylobacter jejuni was recovered from 60 of 116 (52%) persons in households that had one or more ill family members. A cohort study of families that belonged to a food cooperative that purchased raw milk from the implicated dairy showed a significant association between illness and having drunk raw milk. Thirty-nine of 55 (71%) persons who drank raw milk became ill compared with four of 36 (11%) persons who did not drink raw milk (p less than 0.01, t test, accounting for clustering). Peak (convalescent) antibody titers to C. jejuni, determined by indirect immunofluorescence, in 20 raw-milk drinkers showed a geometric mean of 1:27 in contrast to geometric mean titer of 1:6 in 10 well persons from the cohort who did not drink raw milk (p less than 0.002, t test). C. jejuni was recovered from 21 of 34 (66%) raw-milk drinkers, versus none of 26 people who did not drink raw milk (p less than 0.001, Fisher's exact test, one tailed). C. jejuni of the same serotype was isolated from the case-patients and from rectal swabs of cows in the dairy. These findings indicate that raw milk contaminated by Campylobacter was the vehicle for this outbreak.

Information was obtained concerning patients hospitalized in 1970 at institutions participating in the Commission on Professional and Hospital Activities and having a deep mycosis as a discharge diagnosis. Based on these data there were an estimated 7697 patients with systemic mycotic infection hospitalized in the United States in 1970, the cost of their hospitalization being estimated at 9·39 million dollars. Hospitalization rates conformed, in general, to the known geographic distribution of the infective agent. For patients with a primary diagnosis of a mycotic infection, case fatalities per 100 hospitalized patients ranged from 0·0 for actinomycosis to 18·0 for cryptococcosis. Despite limitations of data derived from this type of survey, the findings represent the most accurate and comprehensive study of patients hospitalized due to systemic mycoses.