There has been obtained from infections among American soldiers and natives on certain islands of the South and West Pacific hemolytic corynebacterium which does not conform to any corynebacterium previously described. We have tentatively given it the name uCorynebacterium hemolyticum." This organism bears many similarities to Corynebacterium pyogenes and Corynebacterium ovis which are pathogenic for animals but neither of which is known to occur in man. More than 150 strains of this organism have been isolated, most of them from infections of the nasopharynx and of the skin. The new organism has been isolated not only from soldiers, but also from Tonkinese in the New Hebrides and from Chamorros in the Marianas.