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Scientific Proceedings (132) 



right and held rigidly in that position. This picture was de- 

 scribed by Doerr and Schnabel and later by Levaditi and was 

 attributed by Doerr and Schnabel to an encephalitis, the virus 

 probably passing from the cornea to the brain by way of the 

 blood stream. Levaditi, on the other hand, claimed to have 

 proved that the virus passed from the cornea along the optic 

 nerve to the brain. Our observations make it evident to us 

 that this symptom is due to a lesion on the right side of the 

 pons and medulla along the distribution of sensory fibers of the 

 fifth cranial nerve, which involves the roots of the spinal acces- 

 sory nerve supplying muscles of the neck on the same side, and 

 that this lesion is produced by the virus of herpes entering the 

 brain from the cornea by way of the sensory portion of the fifth 

 cranial nerve. No other lesion has been observed in the brain 

 which might be attributed to passage of virus from the eye along 

 any other nerve, and the unilateral situation of the lesion pre- 

 cludes its production by transmission of the virus through the 

 blood stream. At autopsy on a rabbit inoculated into the right 

 eye killed after the appearance of a turning of the head to the 

 right, one frequently finds macroscopic hemorrhages situated 

 at the point of entrance of the fifth cranial nerve and along the 

 side of the pons and medulla corresponding approximately to 

 the distribution of sensory fibers and nucleus of this nerve on 

 the right. Microscopically an acute inflammation is found with 

 degeneration, necrosis and infiltration with polynuclear and 

 mononuclear cells limited to the right side of pons and medulla 

 corresponding to the gross lesions, sometimes descending super- 

 ficially on the same side along the dorso-lateral portion of the 

 cord involving the root of the first cervical nerve. This lesion 

 has not been observed to extend upward from the entrance of 

 the fifth cranial nerve. 



In such a lesion, cells of glial and ganglion types are found to 

 contain intra-nuclear inclusion-bodies similar to those de- 

 scribed by Lipschiitz in the cornea of rabbits inoculated with 

 virus of herpes febrilis, and which we regard as pathognomonic 

 of herpetic lesions in general. 



The following additional experiments may be cited as con- 

 firming the passage of this virus along sensory nerves : 



(1). A rabbit inoculated into the skin of the right hind leg 

 developed on the 10th day impairment in the use of this leg. 

 progressing during the next few days to practically complete 



