"The forest wealth of Canada is one of the country's greatest natural resources. Our forests have often been termed inexhaustible and perhaps they might be, were it not for the annual losses caused by fire, insects, disease and industrial use. Insects and diseases are responsible for the loss of at least 500 million cubic feet of timber annually or about 15 per cent of the annual depletion." [...]

At the close of the nineteenth century Lehmann and Neumann (1896) designed the genus Corynebacterium as a suitable pigeon-hole in their scheme of Bacterial classification for the organism producing the disease diphtheria and a few other organisms which were considered similar for morphological reasons. The genus consisted entirely of human and animal pathogenic or parasitic bacteria characterized by irregular, often club-like cell shapes, Gram-positive but showing irregular staining, non-acid-fast, non-motile, lacking endospores and having a predominently aerobic habitat.

The organic forms of nitrogen in the soil are derived largely from plant residues, such as stubble, weeds, leaves, and pine needles etc. The amount of protein in these organic materials is often very large. For example, the protein content of cereal straw and wood shaving may be as much as 2 or even 15 per cent, and the protein content of certain defatted meals, may be 40 or even 60 per cent. The phenomenon of growth and death of bacteria in ordinary culture media has been studied in considerable detail.

Previous work in this department has demonstrated that changes accompanying the acquisition of chloramphenicol resistance in Salmonella indicate structural changes in the surface of resistant organisms. Like changes have been indicated by other workers investigating both Gram-positive and Gram-negative chloramphenicol-resistant organisms. The additional observations of increased cross resistance to other antibiotics such as penicillin implies a possible non-specific mechanism of resistance such as an impermeability barrier in the cell.

In sharp contrast to the wealth of chemical knowledge of the nature of the lipids of mycobacteria (Anderson 1940, 1942, Siebert 1950) is the scarcity of facts available to indicate the routes by which fats are metabolized by these organisms. One of the most distinctive features of the Mycobacteriaceae is the ability to attack a wide range of fatty acids and this trait is found both in the highly virulent and in the saprophytic members.

When chloramphenicol was first used for the treatment of typhoid fever, it was observed that although patients responded very well to treatment with this antibiotic, relapses occurred more frequently. It has been postulated that the increased incidence of relapse is a result of a lack in the production of natural immunity during the course of infection caused by a destruction or alteration of the antigenic components of Salmonella typhosa due to its exposure to chloramphenicol. Since that time it has been found that Salmonella typhosa, when made resistant to chloramphenicol "in vitro", has altered antigenic character as determined by agglutination reactions.

The consistent isolation and accurate classification of the pathogenic anaerobic Actinomyces from clinically and histopathologically diagnosed cases of actinomycosis is not always possible. This, it is felt, is due primarily to the lack of known differentiating characteristics of the smooth, A. bovis, Harz 1877 form of the etiological agent. A method which facilitates the isolation of the anaerobic organisms from heavily contaminated specimens is discussed. [...]

The need for sanitary control of molluscan shellfish resulted from the use of rivers, streams, and the sea for the disposal of sewage. Sewage discharged into the sea is rapidly and enormously diluted, but many shellfish beds of commercial importance are situated within long inlets or estuaries where dilution is less effective. In such places molluscs, by virture of their mode of feeding, can become polluted to an extent which make them unsafe to eat uncooked.

In 1947 D.G. Denton (Murray, Denton, Stevenson, and Diena, 1957) isolated a mold, later identified as Penicillium cyaneo-fulvum, and demonstrated that it produced in culture a substance which neutralized staphylococcal alpha-haemolysin. In subsequent work on this toxin-neutralizing agent, Diena (1954 and 1956) developed a method of purifying the toxin-neutralizing substance and established that it neutralized a wide spectrum of bacterial toxins. The toxin neutralizing substance derived from culture filtrates of P. cyaneo-fulvum has been designated Noxiversin. The purpose of this investigation was to study some of the characteristics of the neutralization of staphylococcal alphahaemolysin by Noxiversin.

In 1947 a mould was found growing as a contaminant on a Lowenstein's slope which had been inoculated with sputum for the isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Investigation of the mould showed that it produced, in addition to an antibiotic probably identical with penicillin, a substance capable of neutralizing various bacterial exotoxins (Diena, 1954, 1956; Murray, Denton, Stevenson,and Diena, 1958). The toxin neutralizing substance, now known as noxiversin, was shown to possess, in addition to its antitoxic properties, some activity against influenza virus (Diena, 1956).