A Contribution to the Pathology of Epidemic Poliomyelitis

The virus of poliomyelitis is neurotropic, and localizes, and probably is capable of multiplying in the extramedullary parenchymatous nervous organs. It has been demonstrated by inoculation tests in the intervertebral, Gasserian, and abdominal sympathetic ganglia. All the ganglia show histological lesions, more or less severe, similar to those of the spinal cord and brain. The severest occur in the intervertebral ganglia, those next in severity in the Gasserian, while the mildest appear in the abdominal sympathetic ganglia. The interstitial lesions predominate over the parenchymatous, and in preparalytic stages the intervertebral ganglia show interstitial lesions, especially pronounced at the pial covering. Epidemic poliomyelitis is a general disease of the nervous system, although the most prominent and important symptoms are those following injury to the motor neurones of the spinal cord and brain. The virus of poliomyelitis is highly resistant to glycerin, in which it survives for more than two years; to 0.5 per cent. phenol, in which it survives for more than one year; while it succumbs after having been kept frozen constantly for several months. It is unsafe to employ phenol to modify the virus of poliomyelitis for the purpose of active immunization. The cerebrospinal fluid of convalescents tends to be devoid of the neutralizing immunity principles for the virus of poliomyelitis, although they may exceptionally be present within this fluid. Doubtless the immunity principles are not produced locally in the nervous tissues, but elsewhere in the body, and are carried to the nervous organs by the blood.