Abstract
In a preceding report 1 we have shown that intracerebral inoculation of guinea pigs with the virus of vesicular stomatitis of horses induces characteristic degenerative lesions in the organs of the central nervous system, and after the virus had become fixed by several brain passages in guinea pigs, it exhibited neurotropic action in white mice and rabbits.
After 25 consecutive transmissions of the virus in guinea pig pads, the Indiana and New Jersey strains, already described, 1 were filtered through Seitz' discs and inoculated intracerebrally into white mice.∗ The amount injected was 0.03 cc. of filtrate, derived from 1:10 suspension of affected pad tissue ground in hormone broth at pH 7.5.
Within 30 to 40 hours after injection of either the Indiana or New Jersey strain, the mice develop marked hypersensitiveness, ruffling of the hair, tremors, weakness of the legs, ataxia, and spastic paralysis of the posterior extremities associated with generalized involuntary muscular contractions. The disease is uniformly fatal 48 to 72 hours after inoculation. To the present, 8 brain to brain passages have been made, and all the mice inoculated have developed symptoms.
The histopathological changes in the brain consist of edema and small, localized hemorrhages in the cerebrum. The meninges, however, are not involved. The characteristic lesion is the pronounced necrosis of most of the neurones, especially those of the motor nuclei in the brain stem. The cerebellum is also affected and a massive destruction of the Purkinje cells occurs along with invasion of their layers by an occasional monocyte. The spinal cord reveals a similar necrosis of the neurones.
The identification of the virus as that of vesicular stomatitis is based on cross immunity tests in the guinea pigs, using the guinea pig pad and mouse brain viruses.
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