1. It is shown, by an investigation of the movements of blinking in the normal individual, that the distribution of interblink periods (intervals between successive blinks measured in seconds) is remarkably constant for the individual under constant experimental conditions. 2 The movements are not reflex, and do not depend on the integrity of the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth cranial nerves. They are centrally controlled, and dependent on intermittent impulses passing from the region of the basal ganglia. 3. The rate of blinking is closely related to the “mental tension” of the subject at the time, and in all probability the movements constitute a kind of relief mechanism, whereby nervous energy, otherwise unutilised, passes into a highly facilitated path.

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Two male patients with ankylosing spondylitis and upper lobe fibrosis and cavitation are described. A pneumonic disease in one was associated with mycological and serological evidence of infection with Aspergillus terreus but no other aspergillus species. A large pulmonary mycetoma developed in the second patient and among a number of other fungal isolates was found the yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima. The association of ankylosing spondylitis with bronchopulmonary aspergillosis is considered; A. terreus is described for the first time as a human pulmonary pathogen, and the possible pathogenicity of M. pulcherrima in the debilitated human subject is discussed.Aspergillus fumigatus is the fungal organism most commonly productive of pulmonary disease in this country, but a number of other Aspergillus species have, from time to time, been recognized as pathogenic to man. Aspergillus terreus, however, has infrequently been recorded in human disease and seems rarely, if at all, to have been suspected as a respiratory pathogen. Nor, to our knowledge, has the yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima (previously Candida pulcherrima) been implicated in human pulmonary infection.Two patients are described, each with longstanding ankylosing spondylitis. Pulmonary changes were present in both, characterized by fibrosis and cavitation in the upper lobes. The first patient showed evidence of infection with A. terreus. The second developed an A. fumigatus mycetoma, and M. pulcherrima was isolated from a number of sources.

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