Attempts at Chemotherapy in Experimental Poliomyelitis. ∗

Abstract

The experiments to be briefly presented deal with a systematic investigation into the merits of a number of pharmacological substances as possible chemotherapeutic agents in experimental poliomyelitis in the monkey. The list of substances studied includes the following chemotherapeutic compounds, disinfectants, and drugs: silversalvarsan, neosalvarsan, tryparsamide, colloidal bismuth, bismuth potassium tartrate, triphal (organic gold compound),† methylene blue silver, antimony potassium tartrate, neostibosan (organic antimony compound),†mercurochrome, metaphen, plasmochin,†Bayer 205 (Germanin),†chaulmoogra oil esther,†and hexylresorcinol solution. Since it soon became evident that restraining an already established infection was a hopeless task, we have for the most part administered the above mentioned substances during the incubation period by intravenous, intramuscular, or occasionally intraspinous injection of maximal doses, repeated as a rule at intervals of 2 or 3 days. The experiments were set up in small groups, comprising in each instance 4 or 5 treated animals and one, 2, or more untreated controls. The infection was produced by intracerebral inoculation with 1 cc. of the supernatant of a centrifuged 5% or 10% virus cord emulsion (Aycock strain). Although we have noticed at times slight fluctuations in virulence, as indicated by variation in the length of the incubation period and by the extent of the infectious process, this strain, during a period of 1 year, has never failed to bring down every normal control monkey after intracerebral infection with the above dosage. Needless to say, the authenticity of the lesions was verified in each case by histological examination of the cord. The remarkable uniformity of the infection may, in part, have been due to our careful selection of passage virus, which was obtained by pooling cord sections from different levels of at least three or four different poliomyelitic monkeys, killed at the height of the infectious process.