ACUTE ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS 921 



been described and isolated from cases, but very probably have no 

 significance. We may dismiss the claims of bacterial causative agents 

 as not in any case sufficiently based on reliable evidence. Of im- 

 portance is a publication by Strauss, Hirschfeld and Loewe in 1919. 23 



These workers obtained naso-pharyngeal mucus of fatal cases of 

 the disease, filtered it through Berkefeld candles and injected it sub- 

 durally and intracranially into monkeys and rabbits. In these animals 

 they produced the disease. A monkey (Macacus Cynomolgus) in- 

 jected on April 25th developed by May 2d, lethargy, general malaise, 

 temperature and ptosis of the left lid, but recovered. Similar results 

 were obtained with a Rhesus. Rabbits intracranially injected died in 

 4 or 5 days with punctate hemorrhages in the brain, intense conges- 

 tion, marked meningitis and mononuclear infiltrations about the ves- 

 sels. They claim to have repeated these experiments many times since 

 their first publication. In 1920 Levaditi and Harvier 24 claimed that 

 they confirmed the experiments of Strauss, Hirschfeld and Loewe, 

 both in monkeys, and in addition assert the susceptibility of guinea 

 pigs. In a later publication of Loewe and Strauss 25 they state that 

 the lesions produced in the brains of such experimental animals are 

 similar to those seen in human cases, that is, showing mononuclear 

 perivascular infiltration, small hemorrhages and general congestion, 

 and they add experiments in which they succeeded in transferring the 

 disease with spinal fluid and blood, as well as with material preserved 

 in 50 per cent glycerine for many months. 



By means of the Noguchi anaerobic tissue-acetic-fluid method, they 

 report the cultivation of minute filtrable coccoid bodies, virtually iden- 

 tical with the globoid bodies described by Noguchi for poliomyelitis. 



It is not possible at the present time to make definite statements 

 concerning the reliability of these claims. Other observers of great 

 experience with a large amount of material have failed to obtain 

 similar results. The confirmation by Levaditi and more recently by 

 Inmann, of Strauss and Loewe 's experiments, however, would en- 

 courage the hope that they are right. Moreover, the similarity of the 

 disease to poliomyelitis and the general similarity of pathological 

 lesions would incline one to assume the disease to be probably due to a 

 filtrable virus. 



"Strauss, Hirschfeld and Loewe, N. Y. Med. Jour., 1919, 772; Jour. Infec. 

 Dis., 25, 1919, 378. 



2 < Levaditi and Earvicr, Compt. Rend, de la Soc. Biol., 83, 1920, 354. 

 26 Loewe and Strauss, Jour. Infec. Dis., 27, 1920, 250. 



