Cytopathology of the Brain and Reticuloendothelial Organs in Allergic Encephalitis in Guinea Pigs

EPISODES of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis following infectious disease and a variety of immunization procedures have long been an enigma to pediatricians, neurologists and neuropathologists. Causative factors in these episodes may be placed in three categories, namely, virus invasion of the nerve tissue, allergic reaction to the infecting or inoculated agent and a specific autoallergic reaction to nerve tissue itself. Investigations during the past fifteen years have increased the cogency of the last hypothesis. Extensive studies with a variety of approaches have established beyond reasonable doubt that the nerve tissue, like other tissues of the body, responds violently to antigenantibody reactions.¹Miyagawa and Ishii,²Koritschoner and Schweinburg³and others showed that repeated injection of emulsions of normal homologous nerve tissue in experimental animals occasionally produces symptoms of disease of the central nervous system. Rivers, Sprunt and Berry⁴found that persistence with frequent injections of homologous or heterologous