Bacteriology Dept.
September 5, 1957

Dear Régerti

fhank you fot your letter and the ms. copy. I hyve gotten to
these as soon as I could. As you: suggested, I have just sent a cor-
rected copy to Miss St. @lair. She will arrange to have the new
-vergion retyped and forwarded to you.

The division of opinion by the reviewers was just phat I smyx
would have predicted, and I am not sure I disagree with the more
critical of the two, However, as I pointed out earlier, this is
in the nature df a stylisyic experiment, and wa I will be: interested
to see the outcome in terms of general sritical response.

I do not believe the list of references should be curtailed: in
the nature of the work, it has to take account of a great many pre-
cedents. If anything, I am uneasy that I may have overlooked or
underplayed other relevant studies.

The suggestions of the first reviewer were most constructive,
and I have adopted virtually all of them. May I ask you to convey
my thanks? In a few places, I considered an active verd preceded
_by first person pronoun preferable to tha conventional passive
form, and ratained the former, This could be altered too without
great loss.

I am assuming that the ms. will be accepted in its revised form
& hope you will have received this in timeto forestall any delay.

We have had a mast interesting trip and are now settled for our
job of work here. I was particularly intrigued by some simplified
_methods that Fazekas has worked out for culture of 'flu virus and
am listening attentively to Burnet's colleagues on their work on
its genetics. There has been quite a flurry here about ‘the Asian'
and the Sydney newspapers made quite a play over a few cases of
staphylococcal pneumonia associated with flu: the headlines were
blazing with the "GOLDEN DEATH". The epidemic is pretty well over

now; we should feel the full force of it in the US this winter. It

has not been an especially severe disease (with rare exceptions) but
the incidence hes been very high -- from 10 to 60% in indi» idual

local outbreaks, and by now virtually everyone here has had it. Esther
had rather a prolonged siege (diagnosis?}péssibly compounded by
unheated houses in a marginal winter Climates; so far I've not, and I
just hope some minor catarrh a few weeks ago was it. The vaccinations
don't appear to have been especially effective.

Have a good holiday yourself.
Yours,

Joshua Lederberg
P.S. I have no special nominations now for the

Board. My principal ogndidates have all gotten on,