Observations on the Control and Natural History of Epidemic Diarrhea of Infant Mice (Edim) **

Previous work' has shown that epidemic diarrhea of infant mice (EDIM) is a virus-induced disease that can spread in mouse colonies by the airborne route. This fact made it imperative, under the ordinary conditions of animal care available at that time, to limit the incubation period of experimentally induced diarrhea to three days, since animals becoming ill after that time might have acquired the disease by cross contamination rather than from the inoculum. Thus the sensitivity of titrations, detection of virus, and neutralization tests was thought to be low, because it was not known if the incubation period following small inocula might not be longer than three days. This report will describe measures that allow control of airborne spread to the extent that incubation periods of seven or more days are routinely feasible. In addition, a few preliminary data pertinent to an understanding of this diarrhea will be presented.