Virus Interference by Serially Passed Hodgkin's Disease Extracts in Chicken Eggs. ∗

Abstract

Many workers have joined in the search for an etiologic agent in Hodgkin's Disease (H.D.) and many biological and chemical technics have been tried without solving the problem. An infectious agent has long been suspected as being concerned in the process, and ever since Gordon's (1) report, repeated suggestions of a possible virus etiology have appeared; however, no significant or confirmed evidence of its presence has been reported.

Extensive studies of H.D. by the use of the fertile chicken egg has been made by Bostick (2) in efforts to detect any distinguishing characteristic that might be present. A slight lethal effect of serially passed H.D. extracts on chicken eggs was noted; so the experiments were continued in order to detect other distinguishing characteristics.

Experimental procedures. Fresh H.D. lymph nodes were ground with sterile sand, filtered through a Seitz filter if contaminated, and inoculated into the amniotic sac of 7 to 20 fertile chicken eggs, which had been incubated at 37.5°C for 7 days. After inoculation they were incubated at 35.5°C. The amniotic fluids (Am. F) of some live eggs and all of those dying between 2 and 9 days later were harvested and pooled. After culturing both aerobically and anaerobically, these pooled fluids were inoculated into another series of 7 to 20 eggs. If bacterial contamination occurred, the fluid was Seitz filtered before being passed on. All material was filtered on at least one occasion and had been serially passed through at least 4 (and usually 10) groups of eggs before being used in any interference experiments. Identical but separate serial passages were carried on with non-H.D. cancer-laden lymph node extracts, and this was used as control material. These control tissues were obtained from 4 separate patients.