Herpes Simplex Uveitis: an Experimental Study with the Fluorescein-labeled Antibody Technique.

The direct fluorescent antibody technique of Coons was used to study Von Szily's classical experiment on herpetic uveitis in ivhich inoculation of herpes virus into one eye of a rabbit resulted in the development of uveitis 10 to 14 days later in the opposite uninoculated eye. With the fluorescent antibody technique the virus could be demonstrated in the cells of the iris, ciliary body, corneal endothelium, and trabecular meshioork of the inoculated eye as long as 7 days after inoculation. From the fourth to the eighth day after inoculation the virus could be traced spreading along the posterior ciliary nerves of the inoculated eye toward the central nervous system. On the ninth to fifteenth day, fluorescent antibody staining demonstrated the presence of the virus proliferating in the retina but sparing the choroid of the uninoculated opposite eye. Careful sectioning of both optic nerves and the chiasm from the second through the nineteenth day after inoculation showed patchy viral involvement of the nerves and chiasm but failed to demonstrate a progressive spread of the virus injection by contiguous involvement of the glial elements in one nerve moving to the chiasm and up the opposite nerve to the retina. If the virus was inoculated into the vitreous cavity of the right eye, it coidd be found in the retina of that eye in 48 hours and followed as a progressive infection of the glial cells along the right optic nerve to the chiasm. Infection of the left retina, however, appeared at 9 days after inoculation and before passage of the virus up the left optic nerve could be demonstrated. The inability to demonstrate a continuous spread of the virus along the nerves to the opposite eye suggests an intermittent viremia as the probable route of spread to the opposite eye. Further studies are underway to demonstrate other routes by which the virus may spread in this experimental model.