Experimental Transmission of Rheumatic Fever.

The opportunity arose in 1942 of obtaining certain adult volunteers for an experiment on the transmission of rheumatic fever in blood. This experiment will be recorded in full, although it is realized that owing to its limited scope it is not of great scientific value. It is, however, believed to be the only one of its type on record, and it is therefore of interest and seems to give experimental confirmation to certain hypotheses formulated in an article in the last issue of this journal. It was undertaken in association with Prof. Paul Beeson (then of the Harvard Field Hospital Unit), and was cut short by the exigencies of war service. Briefly it consisted in injecting the blood of a patient suffering with typical rheumatic fever into five volunteers. The blood of those who showed any reaction was then also taken and injected into a further group of volunteers; and so on. It was only in the fourth " generation " of volunteers that no further reaction of any sort was noted.