Transmission Experiments With the Virus of Poliomyelitis

Since our note on the finding of the virus of anterior poliomyelitis in the tonsils of recovered monkeys,1we have been carrying on similar experimentations with human tonsillar and nasopharyngeal tissues as we have been able to obtain them from time to time. Our results in this we presented to the Boston Society of Medical Sciences late in 1911. Our conclusions were that the results of these experimental studies with the filtrates of human nasopharyngeal tissues, removed at varying periods after the acute attack, may be said to be suggestive but not conclusive for the following reasons: In three monkeys injected with three different tonsillar extracts no clinical signs of poliomyelitis followed the inoculations. In two monkeys the clinical signs were typical, but we were unable to pass the infection on to a second series of monkeys in a perfectly conclusive manner; nor were the pathologic findings absolutely typical,