Aeromycology has been largely dealt with for agricultural or medical reasons. Rust spores, smut spores and spores of many other plant pathogens have been found to exist in a viable state in all layers of our atmosphere. Many workers have shown how these organisms through their numerous air-borne spores may be borne thousands of miles to cause new local infections. The almost continuous exposure of wheat to infection by wheat rust is due to the transportation of the rust spores hundreds of miles by air. The infection starts as a wave in the far south of of our continent with winter planting and slowly travels north till all areas are infected. Interest of the allergists is in the local incidence and seasonal variation of the fungous spores known to be allergens. Viability is not essential as mere contact with them is sufficient for an allergic reaction to occur. Academic curiosity led to the first researches on air-borne organisms and continues even today. Such interest in the micro-flora of arctic air particularly in the fungi is stimulated by the desire for knowledge on the distance plant pathogens can travel, but it is of interest to know what kinds of fungi are present and in what numbers, as well as temperatures and other conditions they are able to withstand. While many fungi have been isolated from Arctic and sub-Arctic air only four groups will be discussed in detail in this paper. [...]

During two years spent as a technician in the Department of Bacteriology of the Children’s Memorial Hospital, it was noted how frequently cultures from children with upper respiratory tract infections yielded none of the common pathogens by routine laboratory aerobic culture methods. The etiologic agents of cases such as these might well be viral or aerobic bacteria not ordinarily recognized as pathogenic, or anaerobic bacterial species. The anaerobic bacterial flora of the upper respiratory tract has been but little studied, possibly due to the time consuming and cumbersome methods of obtaining anaerobiosis; possibly because relatively little is known about anaerobic bacterial species, and their classification is still in a state of confusion. It was thought, therefore, that a survey of the anaerobic flora would prove of interest, and perhaps yield further results showing some correlation between certain anaerobic species and disease, the flora of the respiratory tract at different ages, and cast a little more light upon the taxonomy of anaerobic bacteria. This thesis presents a preliminary study.

In all of the folk-lore that has been preserved, diseases were said to be due to supernatural causes, the displeasures of the gods, or to the entrance into the body of some malign spirit or demon. Acrid and aromatic substances were used as a means of driving away the evil spirits. It is quite likely, however, that primitive man in many instances was successful in combating the spread of infectious diseases, since some of the substances he selected were good disinfectants. It seems strange, however, that present day practices of disinfection appear to have been founded upon early religious rites of purification, rather than on the age-old knowledge, that meats and ether putrescible materials are protected from spoilage by certain substances. Our present practices may be described as a summation of the following:- 1. A curious mixture of early religious rites. 2. Knowledge derived from centuries of empirical observations. 3. Information obtained from the critical testing of various substances which possess disinfectant properties. An example of this may be seen in that ancient Persian laws directed that drinking water be kept in bright copper vessels. Whether or not observation had shown that there was less disease when drinking water was kept in this way, or whether the law has some entirely different basis is not known.[...]

During the winter months of 1950-1951 a pneumococcal infection, type 19, broke out among our guinea pigs. Sulfonamide therapy was started immediately; all animals, healthy or sick, receiving one-half grain per pound body weight of sulfamethazine every day in their drinking water. Sera, to be used as complement for the serological laboratory, was always obtained from large healthy guinea pigs. During the pneumococcal outbreak, greater care than ever was taken to see that only healthy animals were used, but in spite of the precautions taken, it soon became evident that the complement was unsatisfactory. In the light of this, it was suggested that an investigation into complement activity during sulfonamide therapy would be of value.

The synthesis of acetylcholine (ACh) was first demonstrated by Quastel, Tennenbaum and Wheatley in 1936 and by Mann, Tennenbaum and Quastel in 1938 and 1939 in rat brain and rat diaphragm slices and independently by Stedman and Stedman in 1937 and 1939 in rat brain homogenates. Feldberg in 1942, as did other early workers, confirmed the synthesis of acetylcholine in tissue slices and in the cellular debris of homogenates; the enzyme involved apparently remained fixed to the tissue or debris and was not obtained in solution. The enzyme, “choline acetylase”, was first obtained as a “cell-free” extract from rat brain and electric organ (Electriphorous electricus) homogenates by Nachmansohn and Machado (1943). “Choline acetylase” was extracted from peripheral nerve (Nachmansohn and John, 1945) and more recently in a highly active form from squid head ganglia homogenates and dried preparations (Nachmansohn and Weiss, 1948). Nachmansohn and his co-workers (1945b, 1946) concluded that the enzyme is present in all nerve tissue free of cell bodies and nerve endings, i.e., is present in motor and sensory nerves as well as in the optic nerve. Feldberg and Mann (1946) consider it to be absent from non-cholinergie nerve (3) fibres, i.e. from the posterior roots and the optic nerve. “Choline acetylase” has been demonstrated in heart auricular tissue (Bülbring and Burn, 1949) and in striated muscle (Nachmansohn, Barman and Weiss, 1947). [...]

It is fitting and proper, I think, to review briefly the circumstances which led to the investigation that is presented herewith as well as what might be expected from such as study. The present project is actually an outgrowth of a previous investigation whose purpose was to determine whether Listeria monocytegenes, or any part thereof, could stimulate the production of sheep erythrocyte agglutinine in rabbits. This initial study has already been reported on (Girard, 1950) and the whole problem has been extensively reviewed by us as a result of this study (Girard and Murray, 1951), reprints of which are submitted. Work was already underway to attempt the isolation of a monocyte-producingagent (MPA) by ourselves in this department from the lipid constituants of the organism, L. monocytogenes, in the Fall of 1949, when an article by N.F. Stanley (1949) appeared that described the isolation thereof. Using his technique we successfully extracted the biologically active material which would, upon intravenous inoculation into rabbits, produce a rapid, marked increase in the number of circulating monocytes (Girard, 1950). Our extraction, however, was made with Listeria monocytogenes 10 XXVIII from Professer E.G.D. Murray’s collection. Upon the receipt of the Australian strain some weeks later and the examination thereof, similar results were obtained, though the Australian variety seemed to be more biologically potent in this respect.[...]

Interest on the part of the author in the current investigation was first stimulated while he was a member of the medical laboratory staff associated with the U.S. Army 42nd General Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, during the last war. While there numerous cases of infectious mononucleosis were studied, and the Paul-Bunnell reaction was seen as a valuable tool in the differential diagnosis of this disease, especially where the blood picture suggested that of lymphatic leucemia. It was our experience, however, that roughly one serum out of ten from cases diagnosed on a clinical basis as infectious mononucleosis and exhibiting the typical mononuclear blood picture seen in this disease, failed at any time during the course of infection to give a significant Paul-Bunnell test.

During the summer of 1949 an investigation of the aerobic bacteria found in the intestines and slime of pike (Esox lucius) was commenced. The fish were obtained, by the use of gill nets, from Lake Monroe, an unpolluted lake, in the Mont Tremblant Park region of the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec. Seventeen pike were used in the study. The length and weight of each fish and the depth and temperature of the water from which the fish were taken are given in Table I.

Most fungous spores are adapted to aerial dissemination and therefore the atmosphere normally contains these organisms in suspension. Aeromycological investigations have been conducted throughout the United States and in some parts of Canada either in the interest of allergy or in studies of the dissemination of the spores of fungi pathogenic to plants. Hitherto no report has been made from the Montreal area. The purpose of this survey was to make a quantitative and qualitative study of the seasonal variation in the fungous spore content of the air over Montreal.

As far back as 1884, Loeffler (59) had directed attention to the haemolytic streptococci which were more or less constantly present in the throats of acutely ill scarlet fever patients. Lemoine (58), in 1895, found streptococci alone in 93 cases when examining the mucus from 117 throats in scarlet fever, while 14 cases had streptococci in association with other organisms. The absence ot streptococci in only 5 of 701 scarlet fever patients was reported by Baginsky and Sommerfeld (3), while Ruediger (88), examining 75 throats of patients ill with this disease, found that 64 showed streptococci alone, with pneumococci and streptococci occurring together in 10 cases.