Spread of Poliomyelitis Virus from the Gastrointestinal Tract. ∗

Abstract

Flexner and Lewis 1 first showed that poliomyelitis could be transmitted by intranasal instillation, the spread of the virus being along the olfactory nerve to the brain. The olfactory nerve, however, is not the only unmedullated one situated in the nasal area, for it is precisely here under the mucosa that the 1500 cells of nervus terminalis are placed, 2 composing a network of cells and fibers as might be found in the myenteric or submucous intestinal sympathetic. 2 , 3 The position of the plexus of the nervus terminal near the embryological juncture of the stomodeum and the possible upper tip of the mesenteron, i. e., the upper end of the foregut of the endodermal tube is significant, since the other portion of the alimentary tract, the hind gut, also possesses the same kind of unmedullated nerve fiber plexuses. If the virus has a facultative or almost an obligate affinity for grey fibers, this area should also provide an easy portal of entry. Perhaps failure to produce the disease after the virus of poliomyelitis had been introduced into the gastrointestinal tract was because the virus never approximated the grey fibers.