156 J. B. CLELAND. 
Darnell Smith! has recorded other recent instances in 
New South Wales. Mr. England tells me he has seen mice 
in South Australia with ‘‘white, ugly growths on the 
head’’—evidently favus. In December, 1911, we received 
from Dr. E. Brown, of Adelaide, two favus mice sent to 
him from the country. He said: ‘‘Over here we have been 
having local plagues of mice, and they get a disease like 
this, and then almost entirely die out—the plague meantime 
appears in some other part.’’ 
Dr. Herman Lawrence? describes cases in Victorian 
mice, and one of his photographs shews extension of the 
process from the head down the dorsum to the tail, the 
lesions in my cases having all been confined to the head 
area. The head is more or less covered with raised dirty 
yellow heaped-up crusts, later blocking the orifices and ob- 
scuring the eyes. The appearance is very repulsive, and 
the disease is said to lead to rapid death. It is due to a 
fungus, one of the Achorions, probably A. Qutinckeanum 
ZLopt. 
Subcutaneous Abscesses.—In several batches of mice, in- 
cluding some from Junee, submitted to us, a number showed | 
swellings in the, neighbourhood of the joints, and sometimes 
on the tail. The chief areas affected were the second joints, 
not counting the hip or shoulder, of the legs. The animals 
were much crippled by them. On dissection, the abscesses 
were found to be deeply subcutaneous, but not arthritic. 
The common pyogenic and skin organisms, Staphylococcus 
aureus and S. albus, were cultivated from the lesions. 
Healthy mice, fed with the pus or with cultures of the above 
organisms, remained perfectly well. It did not seem, there- 
fore, that this disease was infectious or easily conveyed to 
fresh mice by cannibalism. Further, there seemed no means 
2 Darnell Smith, Agric. Gaz. of N.S.W., Feb., 1918, p. 131. 
2 Lawrence, Med. J. of Aust., Feb. 23rd, 1918, p. 146. 
