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Bacillary dysentery has long been one of the most frequently encountered infectious diseases among children of all national groups in the Netherland East Indies. This study is based on four hundred observations made in the children's wards of the General Civil Hospital in Batavia during the period from 1935 to 1937. The larger percentage of patients were native or Chinese, although children of European parents represented 12 per cent of the total. The most constant symptoms were high fever and presence of mucus and some blood in the stools, which were not watery for the most part. Intoxication and death were much more frequent in infants and children in a poor state of nutrition at the onset of the disease. For bacteriologic confirmation it was found important to examine three or more consecutive specimens within the first few days of the disease because of the frequency with which examination of