Infectious Diseases

In this 22d annual review, as usual, subjects of current importance have the most space. Antimicrobic therapy with its less desirable aspects and viral diseases come first. Bacillary infections, especially from Salmonella and Mycobacterium, hold wide interest. Infections of coccal origin, except for those caused by staphylococci, are controlled largely by antimicrobics. The mortality from pneumonia, for example, fell nearly 90% between 1933 and 1955; that from rheumatic fever and syphilis, almost as much. Puerperal septicemia, erysipelas, and mastoiditis seldom are encountered any more.¹,²Virologists list the most important advances in 1956 as follows: further progress in the use of live viruses for vaccination against poliomyelitis and adenoviral infections, expanding use of tissue-culture technique for diagnosis and for the discovery of new viruses, increased knowledge of orphan viruses, the search for antivirotic agents and for oncolytic viruses, and the discovery of the infective ability of nucleic acid.³ Antimicrobic