EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN THE ETIOLOGY OF ACUTE EPIDEMIC POLIOMYELITIS

For several years it has appeared that the etiology of acute epidemic poliomyelitis has been successfully cleared up by the work of Landsteiner and Popper¹ and by that of Flexner² and his co-workers, Lewis, Noguchi and others. Landsteiner and Popper in 1908 first succeeded in transferring the disease to various species of monkeys by intraperitoneal inoculation of human poliomyelitic brain and cord. They were able to produce a disease in the monkey which in its clinical, pathologic and histologic features was quite similar to acute poliomyelitis in man. According to these workers, mice, rats, guineapigs, dogs, cats, goats, sheep and horses proved refractile to the disease. Many conflicting statements occur in the literature as to whether or not the virus of poliomyelitis can be transmitted to the rabbit. Krause and Meinicke assert that they have produced the disease in seven generations of rabbits, and more recently Rosenau and