A survey of an extensive literature on Hodgkin's disease shows it to contain many publications reporting implication of bacteria as the etiologic agent.* None of the work, however, has stood the test of time. Pertinent to our own study are the more recent reports concerning the isolation of acid-fast organisms25 and of a "diphtheroid" 7 from the blood of patients with Hodgkin's disease, since, for a period of time, a diphtheroid with acid-fast properties was persistently isolated by us in blood cultures not only from patients with Hodgkin's disease but from patients with leukemia and lymphosarcoma as well and from both patients and mice with cancer.
It would serve no purpose to describe in detail the numerous experiments performed during four years in an attempt to determine whether these organisms really were carried in the blood stream of sufferers from Hodgkin's disease. The description and results of two major