Abstract
The fact that certain viruses, particularly vaccine virus, can be cultivated in vitro in the presence of susceptible living tissue is now well established. For the cultivation of viruses, small pieces of corneal or testicular tissue from the rabbit, or finely minced chick embryos have usually been employed. In only a few instances 1 has the claim been made that “inclusion bodies” were observed in tissues infected and cultivated in vitro. These claims, however, have not been sufficiently corroborated to be accepted generally.
The inclusions referred to above are characteristic of some diseases, e. g., vaccinia and herpes febrilis, and, regardless of their nature, represent the visible intracellular changes incident to or resultant from infection or injury of cells by certain viruses. Therefore, it seemed likely that, if it were possible to develop a method by which susceptible tissues infected and cultivated in vitro regularly evidence these characteristic intracellular alterations, knowledge concerning infection and immunity might be obtained through the proper use of various combinations of viruses with normal tissue, immune tissue, plasma from normal animals, plasma from immune animals, normal serum, and immune serum. The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly a method by means of which such studies may be conducted.
Inasmuch as the rabbit is susceptible to vaccine virus and also to herpes febrilis virus, and since the farmer agent produces cytoplasmic inclusions while the latter induces nuclear changes, rabbit tissue, vaccine virus, and herpetic virus were chosen for the work. Corneal epithelium was selected for the study, because in this tissue the intracellular changes caused by the viruses have been extensively investigated. Furthermore, the work of Aldershoff and Broers 2 indicated that the use of cornea in vitro would be attended by success.
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