1903.] On the Disintegration of Rabid Brain Substance. 353 



" Note on the Disintegration of Kabid Brain Substance." By 

 J. 0. WAKELIN BAKRATT, Kesearch Student, Jenner Institute 

 of Preventive Medicine. Communicated by LORD LISTER, 

 O.M., F.B.S. deceived July 10, 1903. 



(From the Bacteriological Department of the Institute.) 



Although no organism causally related to rabies has been demon- 

 strated in the tissues of animals dying of this infection, nevertheless 

 it has long been inferred that the virus consists of an organism, since 

 it is capable of indefinite increase when passed from animal to animal. 



It is obvious that, if the virus of rabies is an organism, disintegra- 

 tion of the material in which it is contained will, if sufficiently minute, 

 lead to its destruction. 



In order to test this conclusion, the brain of a rabbit which had died 

 of rabies was broken up in a disintegrator* for 11 hours with sand, 

 cooling being effected by a stream of liquid carbon dioxide in the 

 outer jacket of the apparatus. The disintegrated material inoculated 

 upon two rabbits communicated rabies in each instance. 



More thorough disintegration was next attempted. The later form 

 of disintegrator employed by MacFadyen and Rowland in their recent 

 work on micro-organisms was made use of, and the process carried 

 out at the temperature of liquid air. In this apparatus sand is dis- 

 pensed with, the brittleness of the material ground at this temperature 

 rendering its use unnecessary. 



Portions of the brains of rabbits dying of rabies, following upon 

 inoculation with " virus fixe," were thus disintegrated and the product 

 so obtained, mixed with nine parts of normal saline solution, was used 

 for sub-dural injection. Proceeding in this way it was found that 

 disintegration for five minutes failed to abolish the virulence of the 

 material, that disintegration for half to one hour was usually sufficient 

 to abolish it (10 out of 13 experiments), while disintegration for 

 longer periods (up to three hours) always led to its complete abolition. 



This result suggested a mechanical destruction of the virus of 

 rabies during disintegration. Before this conclusion could be adopted, 

 however, it was necessary to ascertain whether any substance was 

 produced or set free during disintegration, which was in itself 

 capable of destroying " virus fixe," since it is known that immunising 

 substances are formed by animals infected with, or immunised against, 

 rabies, f 



* ' Journ. of. Physiol.,' 1901-2, vol. 27, p. 53. 



f Cp. E. Kraus u. R. Maresch, " Ueber die Bildung von Imumnsubstanzen gegeii 

 das Lyssavirus bei natiirlich empfanglichen und unempfanglichen Thiereu," 

 'Zeitschr. f. Hygiene u. Infectionskrankheiten,' 1902, vol. 31, pp. 526539. 



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