EXPERIMENTAL RUBELLA IN HUMAN VOLUNTEERS

Gregg in 1941 in New South Wales (Australia) established a relationship between the occurrence of maternal rubella and fetal abnormalities. His observations were confirmed by Swan¹ and his co-workers in Australia and by Reese² in the United States. Numerous reports from Australia, England and America have confirmed the observation that maternal rubella in the first trimester of pregnancy is responsible for congenital defects such as cataract, deaf-mutism, and congenital heart lesions.

Anderson³ reports experiments on human volunteers undertaken to demonstrate the feasibility of immunizing girls before marriage and finding a means to prevent infection in vulnerable pregnant women exposed to rubella. The planning of these studies in human volunteers was conducted by the Hall Institute (Melbourne, Australia). The infective material was obtained from throat washings from typical cases of rubella. The material was sealed in ampules at the bedside of the patient, frozen and stored in a