436 POLIOMYELITIS 



Filtrates from these cultures were instilled into the nasal cavity of n men and 

 after a period of incubation of from eight to forty-eight hours all came down 

 with coryza. 



Epidemic Poliomyelitis. Material from the cord of child with the 

 disease when injected subdurally, intravascularly, or into the peritoneal 

 cavity of monkeys produced the disease in the animals inoculated. 

 The virus has been passed through three generations of monkeys 

 (Flexner). 



The virus has been found in the brain, spinal cord, mesenteric and salivary glands 

 of monkeys and may remain in the nasal mucosa of monkeys as long as five months. 

 This would indicate the existence of human chronic carriers. With the possible 

 exception of the rabbit only man and the monkey are susceptible. This would 

 indicate that the virus is directly transferred from man to man. The virus is 

 highly resistant to drying and light. It will remain alive for months in dust. It is 

 not sterilized by pure glycerine during many months of contact. It is possibly 

 transmitted by a biting fly, Stomoxys calcitrans. Against this is the fact that 

 the virus has not been found in the blood. 



Flexner and Noguchi have recently cultivated the virus of polio- 

 myelitis by employing ascitic fluid to which had been added a fragment 

 of sterile rabbit kidney and nutrient agar, this culture medium being 

 covered with a layer of paraffin oil. The growth is obtained under 

 anaerobic conditions. The minute colonies are composed of globular 

 or globoid bodies from 0.15 to 0.3 micron in diameter. These bodies 

 may be single or in chains or in masses. In older cultures bizarre forms 

 are obtained. Monkeys have been inoculated with the cultures. 



Foot and Mouth Disease. Due to an ultramicroscopic organism. 



This is a highly contagious disease of cattle characterized by the appearance 

 of vesicles in the mouth and about the feet of cattle. Man rarely contracts the 

 infection through drinking the milk of infected animals. This disease is of great 

 interest as having been the first of the filterable virus diseases to have been discovered 

 (Loffler and Frosch in 1898). 



Measles. Cause entirely unknown. Hektoen has shown that bl 

 contains the virus. 



Anderson has found that the virus of measles can pass through a Berkefeld filter 

 and loses its infectivity after heating for fifteen minutes at 55C. In infecting 

 monkeys it was found that the blood of patients with measles was infective only 

 just before and for about twenty-four hours after the appearance of the eruption. 

 Mixed nasal and buccal secretions were infective for monkeys for about forty-eight 

 hours from the time of the eruption. The scales from desquamating cases were 

 not capable of infecting monkeys hence it was thought that measles was no 

 contagious during the period of desquamation. 





