Studies on infectious mononucleosis: attempts to transmit the disease to human volunteers.

In spite of the frequency of infectious mononucleosis as a clinical disorder, particularly in the age group of 15 to 25 years, there is a paucity of information regarding the nature of the cause and the routes of transmission of this disease. Many attempts to transmit this disorder in experimental animals inoculated with whole blood, serum, excised lymph nodes, and throat washings from patients with the disease have been conducted without apparent success"' and experimental transmission to man has met only with negative or equivocal results.88 In 1953, Taylor' demonstrated heterophile antibody formation in three children having acute leukemia who received pooled sera from patients with infectious mononucleosis. In a subsequent trial, Evans'0 repeated this work by inoculating 2 ml. of pooled sera obtained from patients in the early stages of infectious mononucleosis into a 3y2 year old boy with acute leukemia. On the ninth day following inoculation, this patient developed an erythematous rash, fever to 1050 F. and leukocytosis with an increase in lymphocytes, but did not have an associated rise in heterophile antibody titer. Misao and Kobagashi" on the other hand reported in 1955 the isolation of Rickettsia senetsu from presumed cases of infectious mononucleosis and have described successful transmission of the disease in over 30 human volunteers. Subsequent confirmation of this work has not been reported elsewhere and it has been suggested'2 that the disorder that was transmitted may be an endemic rickettsial disease of Kagami-Fever type. Recently, electron microscopic studies have revealed that young children with infectious mononucleosis have high concentrations of myxovirus-like particles in their blood similar to those observed in children with acute