Cultivation experiments on the globoid bodies of poliomyelitis.
01 Mar 1918-Journal of Experimental Medicine (The Rockefeller University Press)-Vol. 27, Iss: 3, pp 319-340
TL;DR: A modified, perhaps improved, but alternative method has been devised for the cultivation of the globoid bodies and other microorganisms demanding a high degree of anaerobiosis.
Abstract: The globoid bodies, identical in morphological and cultural characteristics with the organisms described by Flexner and Noguchi, have been obtained in twenty-two cultures from the tissues of seven monkeys suffering from experimental poliomyelitis. Twenty of the strains were cultivated from the central nervous organs, all being obtained from the cerebrum except one, which was cultivated from the cervical portion of the spinal cord. Two strains were cultivated from the spleen. None of the cultivated strains inoculated produced typical poliomyelitis in monkeys. The recovery of a strain of the globoid bodies from the inoculated monkey is as difficult as is the original cultivation of the organisms from animals inoculated with the ordinary virus of poliomyelitis. Nothing in this study has served to implicate the streptococcus in the pathology of the poliomyelitic process; the streptococcus is, however, encountered as a common contaminant or secondary invader, especially in animals which have been etherized while moribund, or which had died some hours previous to the autopsy. When the infected and paralyzed animals are killed while still strong, secondary invading bacteria, including the streptococcus, tend to be absent from the tissues. A modified, perhaps improved, but alternative method has been devised for the cultivation of the globoid bodies and other microorganisms demanding a high degree of anaerobiosis.
Citations
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TL;DR: Throughout this discussion the term "filterable viruses" will be employed in a noncommittal way to designate certain active etiological agents of this group of diseases.
Abstract: In all fields of work, times come when one must stop and take thought. New facts, new ideas, and new suggestions alter lines of endeavor in every field of research. We are here today for the purpose of taking thought concerning the knowledge of the socalled filterable viruses and the diseases caused by them. I have been asked to give a critique of this knowledge. It is quite obvious that I shall be unable within an hour to analyze thoroughly and to criticize authoritatively all the work in this field. Therefore, I shall review quickly some facts and ideas concerning this group of diseases as a whole and then discuss a few reports concerning several of its individual members. In table 1 are listed most of the diseases which are included by different observers in the group under discussion. The etiological agents concerned in these diseases, or groups of them, have been given a variety of names, e.g., filterable viruses, invisible microbes, ultra-microscopic viruses, inframicrobes, protista, microplasms, chlamydozoa, and strongyloplasms. A superficial examination alone is convincing that none of these names is applicable to all of the etiological agents. Names, however, facilitate the interchange of facts and ideas between individuals. For practical purposes, then, the term "filterable viruses," mainly because of its wide usage, is as satisfactory as any name suggested. Throughout this discussion the term "filterable viruses" will be employed in a noncommittal way to designate certain active
39 citations
01 Jan 1958
TL;DR: The first successful transmission of human poliomyelitis to monkeys was reported by Landsteiner as discussed by the authors, who was able to reproduce the disease in serial spinal cord to brain passages.
Abstract: In 1908 Landsteiner reported the first successful transmission of human poliomyelitis to monkeys. His observation was readily confirmed by i. a. Flexner and Lewis (1909a) and Leiner and von Wiesner (1909) who were able to reproduce the disease in serial spinal cord to brain passages. Filterability of the infectious agent was first reported by Flexner and Lewis (1909b) who concluded that it “’belongs to the class of minute and filterable viruses”.
8 citations
TL;DR: Streptococci have been isolated from the central nervous system of monkeys dead of poliomyelitis and from the brains of normal rabbits, and the pathogenicity of these organisms has not been tested on monkeys, and they do not differ from those isolated from monkeys and rabbits dead from other causes.
Abstract: Streptococci have been isolated from the central nervous system of monkeys dead of poliomyelitis. Streptococci have also been isolated from the central nervous system of monkeys dead of other causes as well as from the brains of normal rabbits. Streptococci isolated from poliomyelitic monkeys do not differ from those isolated from monkeys and rabbits dead from other causes. An etiological relation has not been established between streptococci and poliomyelitis. We have at several times isolated an organism that was similar to the globoid bodies culturally, morphologically, and in staining reaction, but have not been able to carry it along for more than three generations. The pathogenicity of these organisms has therefore not been tested on monkeys. We have not been able to produce typical lesions of poliomyelitis in rabbits by the injection of either the poliomyelitic virus or streptococci.
7 citations
TL;DR: Recently Long, Olitsky and Stewart showed that there may be still another source of the streptococci; namely, the air of the place in which the cultures are made.
Abstract: Rosenow and his collaborators and others 1 have insisted on the identity of streptococci with the filtrable virus of poliomyelitis, a view that has not been generally accepted. For example, Bull 2 expressed the opinion that the bacteria are secondary invaders in the disease, and Smillie 3 and Amoss 4 viewed the cocci as being agonal invaders. Recently Long, Olitsky and Stewart 1 showed that there may be still another source of the streptococci; namely, the air of the place in which the cultures are made. Furthermore, their experiments revealed that cultures of other organisms, such as staphylococci, diphtheroids, spore-bearing rods, and other miscellaneous, familiar micro-organisms, can be obtained frequently from the ground up brains of monkeys with poliomyelitis, the source of these being also the air. Certain biologic tests were reported which demonstrate the wide variation of the effects of streptococci from those of the true filtrable virus of
6 citations
5 citations
References
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TL;DR: Several attempts have been made to demonstrate under the microscope and to develop in artificial cultures the microSrganism causing epidemic poliomyelitis, but hitherto unsuccessfully, but the discovery of the filterable nature of the causative agent independently by Flexner and Lewis 8 and Landsteiner and Levaditi 4 not only disposed finally of the claims made, but also discouraged renewed efforts at cultivation.
Abstract: Several attempts have been made to demonstrate under the microscope and to develop in artificial cultures the microSrganism causing epidemic poliomyelitis, but hitherto unsuccessfully. Giers-vold 1 cultivated certain micrococci from the cerebrospinal fluid, and Fox 2 a bacillus from the circulating blood of poliomyelitic patients, but both have now been discredited as causes of the disease. The discovery of the filterable nature of the causative agent independently by Flexner and Lewis 8 and Landsteiner and Levaditi 4 not only disposed finally of the claims made for the above mentioned bacteria, but also discouraged renewed efforts at cultivation. Flexner and Lewi# noted and Levaditi 6 confirmed a clouding of serum bouillon by an aqueous Berkefeld filtrate of the central nervous tissues of poliomyelitic monkeys, but the phenomenon proved to be due to protein precipitation and not to multiplication of a living parasite. Proescher 7 has recently stained certain coccus-like bodies in films prepared from the central nervous organs of monkeys infected experimentally with the virus of poliomyelitis. The precise nature of these bodies has stil,1 to be worked out; ap
39 citations
"Cultivation experiments on the glob..." refers background or methods in this paper
...That the inoculation of pure cultures of the globoid bodies, even in a remote generation, will sometimes produce infection in monkeys, attended by the symptoms and specific lesions of experimental poliomyelitis, has been shown by the reports of Flexner and Noguchi (1), and Flexner, Noguchi, and Amoss (10)....
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...The ultimate criteria of experimental poliomyelitis are (1) the typical histological lesions and (2) recommunicability of the disease by inoculation of the nervous tissues of the suspected case....
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...In their original publication Flexner and Noguchi (1) state tha t...
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...In this respect they may be said to resemble Treponema pallidum, with which they share so many cultural requirements and immunological reactions, as has previously been pointed out by others (1, 11)....
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...d e s c r i b e d b y F l e x n e r a n d N o g u c h i (1)....
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TL;DR: Streptococci cultivated from the tonsils of thirty-two cases of poliomyelitis were used to inoculate various laboratory animals and failed to detect any etiologic or pathologic relationship between strePTococci and epidemic poliomeelitis in man or true experimental poliomersalitis in the monkey.
Abstract: Streptococci cultivated from the tonsils of thirty-two cases of poliomyelitis were used to inoculate various laboratory animals. In no case was a condition induced resembling poliomyelitis clinically or pathologically in guinea pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, or monkeys. On the other hand, a considerable percentage of the rabbits and a smaller percentage of some of the other animals developed lesions due to streptococci. These lesions consisted of meningitis, meningo-encephalitis, abscess of the brain, arthritis, tenosynovitis, myositis, abscess of the kidney, endocarditis, pericarditis, and neuritis. No distinction in the character or frequency of the lesions could be determined between the streptococci derived from poliomyelitic patients and from other sources. Streptococci isolated from the poliomyelitic brain and spinal cord of monkeys which succumbed to inoculation with the filtered virus failed to induce in monkeys any paralysis or the characteristic histological changes of poliomyelitis. These streptococci are regarded as secondary bacterial invaders of the nervous organs. Monkeys which have recovered from infection with streptococci derived from cases of poliomyelitis are not protected from infection with the filtered virus, and their blood does not neutralize the filtered virus in vitro. We have failed to detect any etiologic or pathologic relationship between streptococci and epidemic poliomyelitis in man or true experimental poliomyelitis in the monkey.
30 citations
"Cultivation experiments on the glob..." refers methods in this paper
...with those described b y Bull (8) as not to call for r e s t a t e m e n t here....
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TL;DR: For several years it has appeared that the etiology of acute epidemic poliomyelitis has been successfully cleared up by the work of Landsteiner and Popper and by that of Flexner 2 and his co-workers, Lewis, Noguchi and others.
Abstract: For several years it has appeared that the etiology of acute epidemic poliomyelitis has been successfully cleared up by the work of Landsteiner and Popper 1 and by that of Flexner 2 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
16 citations
"Cultivation experiments on the glob..." refers background in this paper
...(5), Rosenow, Towne, and Wheeler (6), and N u z u m and Herzog (7)...
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TL;DR: The experiments reported in this paper afford additional strong evidence in support of the view already expressed, that this microorganism bears an etiological relationship to epidemic poliomyelitis in the human subject and to experimental poliomersic diseases in the monkey.
Abstract: The minute microorganism cultivated from poliomyelitic tissues survives and maintains its pathogenicity in cultures for more than one year Upon inoculation into monkeys poliomyelitis may fail to appear upon the first injection and yet follow from the effects of successive injections of the culture Inoculations of cultures into monkeys which fail to produce paralysis may fail also to induce resistance or immunity In this respect the action of the cultures resembles that of the virus as contained in infected nervous tissues The lesions occurring in the spinal cord, medulla, and intervertebral ganglia of the monkeys which respond to the several inoculations of the cultures are identical with those present in the nervous organs of the animals responding to injection of the ordinary virus Glycerinated nervous tissues derived from the monkeys responding to several injections of the cultures transmit experimental poliomyelitis to monkeys upon intracerebral inoculation The microorganism inoculated may be recovered in cultures from the monkeys which develop poliomyelitis; but cultivation from the brain tissue is attended with the usual difficulties surrounding the obtaining of the initial growth The microorganism cultivated from poliomyelitic tissues is adapted with difficulty to saprophytic conditions of multiplication, but once adapted growth readily takes place upon suitable media When, however, as a result of inoculation into monkeys, the parasitic propensities of the microorganism are restored, it again displays the marked fastidiousness to artificial conditions of multiplication present at the original isolation The experiments reported in this paper afford additional strong evidence in support of the view already expressed, that this microorganism bears an etiological relationship to epidemic poliomyelitis in the human subject and to experimental poliomyelitis in the monkey
11 citations
"Cultivation experiments on the glob..." refers background in this paper
...That the inoculation of pure cultures of the globoid bodies, even in a remote generation, will sometimes produce infection in monkeys, attended by the symptoms and specific lesions of experimental poliomyelitis, has been shown by the reports of Flexner and Noguchi (1), and Flexner, Noguchi, and Amoss (10)....
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TL;DR: A strain of the poliomyelitic virus was propagated in monkeys for four years, during which time it displayed three distinct phases of virulence, which are correlated with the wave-like fluctuation in epidemics of disease.
Abstract: A strain of the poliomyelitic virus was propagated in monkeys for four years, during which time it displayed three distinct phases of virulence. The several phases covered different periods of time. At the outset the virulence was low, but by animal passages it quickly rose to a maximum; this maximum was maintained for about three years, when, without known changes in the external conditions, a diminution set in and increased until at the expiration of a few months the degree of virulence about equalled that present at the beginning of the passages in monkeys. The cycle of changes in virulence is correlated with the wave-like fluctuation in epidemics of disease which also consist of a rise, temporary maximum, and fall in the number of cases prevailing. And an explanation of epidemics of disease is inferred in variations or mutations among the microorganismal causes of disease affecting chiefly the quality of their virulence.
11 citations
"Cultivation experiments on the glob..." refers background in this paper
...The ultimate criteria of experimental poliomyelitis are (1) the typical histological lesions and (2) recommunicability of the disease by inoculation of the nervous tissues of the suspected case....
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...virus (2), which has also passed through many monkeys....
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