and § Public Health Laboratory, PrestonB R U C E L L O S I S presents in three forms-acute brucellosis, chronic brucellosis following an acute attack and chronic brucellosis of insidious onset. Because the rate of isolation of Brucella abortus from blood or tissues is low, laboratory diagnosis of this disease is based mainly on the results of serological tests, the results of which depend on the clinical form and stage of the infection. The use of some of these tests in chronic brucellosis has already been discussed (Kerr, Coghlan, Payne and Robertson, 1966a and b).The variety of technical procedures employed at present leads to results that cannot be equated between laboratories. The purposes of this paper are to present details of these tests so that comparable results may be obtained and to indicate the way in which the results may be interpreted to help to determine the stage of the infection. The paper is presented in two parts; the first deals with a description of the tests and the second with their interpretation. There is also an appendix in which certain technical minutiae omitted from the main text may be referred to. The following tests are dealt with: (A) the standard agglutination test ; (B) the mercaptoethanol test (agglutination in the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol) ; (C) the anti-human globulin (Coombs) test (AHG test) for non-agglutinating antibodies ; (D) the complement fixation (CF) test. TECHNICAL PROCEDURESIn all cases Brucella abortus (BY. abortus) agglutinable suspensions are used for the tests, but in certain circumstances, to be discussed later, Brucella melitensis (Br. melitensis) suspensions are included. The standard agglutination test Mate vialsAntigen. Three different Br. abortus suspensions have been available to the authors for investigation. They are " Weybridge " standardised BY. abortus " agglutination concentrate", produced by the Veterinary Laboratories of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Weybridge, England; Br. abortus " concentrated 0 suspension " produced by the Standards Laboratory, Central Public Health Laboratory, London (PHLS); and " Wellcome " Br. abortus " agglutinable concentrated smpension " produced by Burroughs Wellcome and Co. These three suspensions differ in their cell concentrations, and since an inverse linear relation exists between the concentration of the bacterial cells and the

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Trichophyton mentagrophytes var. erinacei, first described by Marples and Smith in 1960, has been isolated in this laboratory during the past six months from three human cases of skin infection.

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