Survival of Poliomyelitic Virus in the Brain of the Rabbit

Suspensions of the central nervous tissues of monkeys, containing the active filterable virus of poliomyelitis, may be injected into the brain of rabbits without setting up symptoms, provided the volume of injection does not cause dangerous increased intracranial pressure. Aside from the pressure effects which develop quickly, no other symptoms or pathological lesions are produced by the suspensions. The active virus of poliomyelitis survives in the brain of rabbits for 4 days, as determined by tests in the monkey, into which the excised site of injection in the rabbit brain is reinoculated. It cannot be detected by this test after the expiration of 7 days. The virus of poliomyelitis is unadapted to the rabbit, and neither induces lesions nor survives long in the central nervous organs of that animal. In this respect it differs from certain streptococci cultivated from poliomyelitic tissues. A monkey immunized to streptococcus cultivated from human poliomyelitic nervous tissues yielded a serum which agglutinated the streptococcus in high dilution, but was without neutralizing action on the filtered virus; and the streptococcus-immune monkey was not protected against the effects of an intracerebral inoculation of the filtered virus. The experiments recorded provide additional reasons for concluding that the streptococcus cultivated from cases of poliomyelitis differs essentially from the filterable virus and is not the microbic cause of epidemic poliomyelitis.