An 84-bed community general hospital with approximately 4,000 admissions and 750 live births per year became aware of a problem of staphylococcic infections when a 2-day-old baby developed a paronychial abscess. During the ensuing seven days 11 newborn infants were found to have pustular lesions yielding similar organisms. The nursery was closed temporarily, and extraordinary efforts were made to eradicate all sources of infection and to eliminate errors of technique. Improvement was only temporary, and the epidemic reached a second peak in June, 1958, when 29 (60%) of 48 deliveries successfully followed up were found to be associated with suppurative infection. Among the measures that were tried, the one that seemed to contribute most to the termination of the epidemic was compulsory rooming-in of the infant with the mother.