Sodium Ricinoleate and Active Immunity Against Experimental Monkey Poliomyelitis.

Abstract

The experiences of one of us (Larson¹) with the detoxifying action of sodium ricinoleate in the case of several bacteria and several bacterial toxins, suggested the possibility of actively immunizing monkeys against experimental poliomyelitis through the medium of this soap. Consequently we obtained a sample of the “M. A. strain” of poliomyelitis virus from the Rockefeller Institute of New York, through the courtesy of Dr. Simon Flexner, and established the disease in our own animals.

In general, we are proceeding according to the following plan. A virulent sample of poliomyelitis is obtained by producing the disease in an animal by the intracerebral injection of stored glycerinated virus. The animal is then killed by chloroform during the height of the disease, and immediately about a gram of the brain is removed sterilly and ground up in 5 to 10 cc. of physiologic saline solution. This emulsion is used to continue the disease in another animal and to prove the potency of the soap-virus emulsion injected into the animals being immunized. At the same time another gram of the brain is ground up and emulsified with 5 to 10 cc. of 1 per cent aqueous sodium ricinoleate. This soap-virus emulsion is injected by different routes in normal animals to establish the assumed immunity. Some time later these animals are injected intracerebrally with a virulent saline emulsion of poliomyelitis brain to test their resistance.

Approximately 60 injections of the soap-virus emulsion have been administered in the animals by the cerebral, subcutaneous or intraperitoneal route. None of these animals have developed poliomyelitis within the incubation period of the disease following such an injection, though 2 of them showed complete hemiplegia immdiately after frontoparietal cerebral injection, and died within 2 or 3 days.