Poliomyelitis Viruses in Tissue Culture 5

Tissue culture inoculation has replaced the production of the experimental disease in the monkey as the method of choice for the direct isolation and antigenic identification of virus from materials obtained from poliomyelitis patients.""' 12,16,18 In addition, tissue-culture methods have now made practical serologic tests for antibody development in man after natural poliomyelitis infection' ' or after active immunization."' However, there has been no standardization of methods as yet, which is perhaps desirable in a field so new. The present report is concerned with the further development of tissueculture techniques, with a view to their possible effectiveness in a poliomyelitis diagnostic laboratory. Three different lines of investigation have been pursued: 1. A comparison of the sensitivity and practicality of different methods for virus isolation. 2. An integration of the data obtainable from clinical specimens both by virus isolation and by serological tests for complement-fixing and neutralizing antibodies. 3. An investigation of possible correlations between the type of disease, the type of virus involved, and the immunological response. In the early studies reported in the literature, cultures of human tissues or monkey testis were chiefly employed. Another monkey tissue which is readily responsive to poliomyelitis virus infection is the kid-