To the Editor:
—In a letter in The Journal (Oct. 2, 1909, liii, 1113), Burnham claims "priority" for Burnham and Lyons apropos of the work published by me in The Journal (Sept. 18, 1909, liii, 909), in which I found distilled water contaminated with acid-fast bacilli. Burnham and Lyons found vibrios contaminating their water while they were searching for typhoid bacilli in fresh blood, but they did not find acid-fast organisms in the water. In one of their preparations, made with blood from the lobe of the ear, they found tubercle-like bacilli which they considered contaminating organisms from ear wax. Apparently, it did not occur to them that these might have come from distilled water.It does not seem to me that their experience was similar to mine, as Burnham's letter states, or that Burnham is justified in his claim. Their work was published in the New Orleans Medical and