Encephalitis and Poliomyelitis in the Adult Due to Coxsackie Virus Group B, Type 5

TWO children suffering from an illness diagnosed clinically as mild paralytic poliomyelitis were the source of the original Coxsackie virus.1 Nonetheless, the ability of this virus to produce neuronal damage has been largely overlooked amid the extraneural syndromes that it causes (for example, herpangina, pleurodynia and epidemic myalgia). Thus, in several recent authoritative reviews,2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Coxsackie viruses are accepted as the cause of "benign aseptic meningitis" and mild poliomyelitic syndromes,9 the latter occurring principally in children. Serious disease of the brain or spinal cord is noted almost exclusively in the frequently disastrous encephalomyocarditis of neonates and infants.10 In a few epidemiologic . . .