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While individuals may at times lose touch with reality as their culture defines it, whole communities ordinarily do not. Yet instances are on record when this has very nearly happened: people in Mattoon, Illinois, believed for a few days in September 1945 that a "phantom anesthetist" was prowling their town; and a Martian invasion took place in the minds of many persons in the New York City area on October 30, 1938. Russia's Sputniks may be expected to give rise to a wide variety of mass hallucinatory phenomena similar to those that followed our first H-bomb explosions in March, 1954. This paper analyzes one such reaction: the windshield pitting epidemic that broke out in Seattle, Washington, in the Spring of 1954. Most commonly, the damage reportedly, windshelds consisted of pitting marks that grew into bubbles in the glass of about size of a thumbnail. On the evening of the 15th, the Mayor of Seattle declared the damage was no longer a police matter and made an emergency appeal to the Government for help. Many persons covered their windshields with mats or newspaper; others simply kept their automobiles garaged.

Measles has had particularly serious effects when epidemics have occurred in isolated susceptible adult populations and hence the newly developed measles vaccines may be of special importance to these groups. This paper reports on one of the first sizeable trials of live-virus vaccine (Enders Edmonston B strain) in a group of measles-susceptible adults. Over 700 persons, mostly adults, were vaccinated in Iceland in 1962. Detailed records of the reactions in the vaccinated and control groups were obtained and serological tests were made on paired serum specimens. The reactions in all age-groups were basically similar and showed only minor differences in severity. The incubation period was found to increase progressively with age. As well as confirming the general safety of the Enders live measles virus vaccine in adults, this study provides new information on the nature of the reactions induced by measles vaccine and on the comparative immunological response of various age-groups.

A pandemic of El-Tor-type cholera began in south-east Asia during 1961. Many members of the medical profession, as well as government officials and the public, were confused by the relationship between the disease caused by the El Tor organism and classic Asiatic cholera. The authors observed large numbers of cholera patients admitted to San Lazaro Hospital, Manila, early in the Philippine epidemic, and in the present communication they draw attention to certain clinical and epidemiological features of so-called El Tor cholera. The paper not only describes the patients and the epidemic, but also suggests some of the treatment needs during such an epidemic. No indication was found that the disease caused by the classic cholera vibrio is different from that which is designated the El Tor variant.

In the course of the attenuated live poliovirus vaccination trial described in the preceding paper, an estimated 46 000 African children were given CHAT strain. Among the 3400 children followed up by home visits, none developed paralytic poliomyelitis or aspetic meningitis. When bled 2-3 months after vaccination, 60% of previously type-1 negative children had antibodies; interference by wild enteric viruses is suggested in explanation of this low figure.Two months after the beginning of vaccination, a type-1 poliomyelitis epidemic broke out, largely concentrated in a district in which no vaccination had yet been done. No geographical, chronological or family association between vaccination and poliomyelitis cases could be found. Of a total of 99 cases, 10 were in vaccinated children; but the intervals between vaccination and onset and identification of viruses from patients indicated that no case was caused by the vaccine.Previous vaccination with CHAT virus appeared to confer significant protection (60%) against the epidemic type 1 strain.

During the summer of 1962, cholera broke out in Taiwan after an absence of 16 years. This paper gives a full description of the prompt and energetic measures that were instituted to control the outbreak; these included the designation of emergency areas, the immediate detection and isolation of patients and probable carriers, and mass vaccination.In all, over 160 000 rectal swabs and stool specimens were examined for cholera organisms. The author's egg-starch medium, described in detail, proved very satisfactory for this purpose. During the main epidemic (July-September) 383 confirmed cases of cholera and 380 carriers were identified. While the over-all carrier: case ratio was thus approximately 1:1 the ratios in different age-groups varied considerably, being as high as 4:1 in children aged 0-4 years and as low as 0.3:1 in persons aged 55-59 years. The author suggests possible reasons for the older persons' tendency to develop clinical disease rather than become carriers.There were only 24 deaths in the outbreak (a fatality rate of 6%). The efficacy of vaccination was difficult to determine precisely, but in general more deaths and more cases occurred among the non-vaccinated than among the vaccinated.

The treatment of cholera with bacteriophage has, in the past, been unsuccessful, owing to the fact that the phages prepared by the usual method (multiplication on cholera vibrios in broth) proved incapable of parasitizing cholera vibrios in vivo. In this paper, the author presents the results of therapeutic and prophylactic trials of a phage preparation prepared by a different method-namely, cultivation on cholera vibrios through alternate passages in the small intestine of guinea-pigs and in bile. This preparation was used effectively for the treatment of cholera patients and for the control of epidemic outbreaks in Afghanistan in 1958 and 1960. A single dose of the phage, administered with saline intravenously or intramuscularly, followed by an oral dose daily for three days, gave satisfactory results in the majority of cases, even if the patients were seriously ill and did not receive additional symptomatic treatment. As to the prophylactic value of the phage, when the preparation was administered simultaneously with a single dose of cholera vaccine to the entire population of an epidemic focus, no further cases of the disease occurred in that focus.