The purpose of this paper is to describe an apparently new disease entity and to discuss the importance of its proper diagnosis. The cases in this study were seen at the State Hospital for Crippled Children, Elizabethtown, Pa., from Nov. 4, 1955, to April 4, 1956. This hospital is an orthopedic hospital which admits children from birth to 21 years of age for correction and rehabilitation of either congenital or acquired skeletal deformities. The census averages 150, and the children are divided into six open wards according to sex and age. There is free intermingling in the wards, at school, in physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, and occupational therapy. The immediate pre- and post-overative children are segregated in two- or four-bed wards. During the five months from Nov. 4, 1955, to April 4, 1956, twenty-three orthopedic patients, two house officers, two nurses, and the wife and two children of one of the house