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Despite repeated attempts, and the use of a variety of cultural methods, no osmotically fragile persisting organisms, or L-forms, could be detected in the kidneys of mice with enterococcal pyelonephritis after they had been treated with ampicillin. L-forms added to the kidneys were readily recovered after processing of the tissue in a Teflon grinder, and destruction during processing could not explain the failure to detect variants in urine plated directly on to L-form agar. No L-forms were detected in the kidneys after suppression of renal defence systems with cortisone. It is suggested that the failure of penicillin-damaged enterococci to grow as L-forms was due to inimical physiological conditions in the mouse kidney.