Isolation of B Virus (herpes Group) from T H E Central Nervous System of a Rhesus Monkey* By

The first isolations of B virus were made by Sabin and Wright (1), and independently by Gay and Holden (2), from the central nervous system of an investigator who developed a spreading, fatal infection with ascending myelitis after a bite on the hand from an apparently normal rhesus monkey. Gay and Holden called the agent W virus and thought it to be a highly neurotropic strain of herpes simplex virus. Sabin and Wright named it the B virus (from the initial of the laboratory worker from whom it was isolated), and subsequently Sabin showed that although related to the virus of herpes simplex (and to the virus of pseudombies), B virus had several distinctive properties (3-6). Burnet, Lush, and Jackson (7) also reported that B virus and herpes simplex virus are closely related antigenic.ally, but that B virus has broader anfigenicity than herpes virus. The second isolation of B virus was also performed by Sabin (8), under circumstances similar to the first. Another investigator engaged in experimental work with rhesus monkeys contracted a fatal infection of the central nervous system, apparently from contamination by monkey saliva of a minor cut on the finger. To our knowledge these have been the only two recorded isolations of B virus. In both the instances the virus was isolated from persons who developed infection after close contact with the saliva of monkeys, a fact which led Sabin to presume that the virus was derived from the animals. This view was supported by the finding that some monkeys possess neutralizing antibodies against the agent (5, 7, 9), leading to the hypothesis that the monkey is the natural host of B virus. However, there has not been any report of direct isolation of this agent from the monkey. I t is for this reason that we are reporting here an instance of the isolation of B virus from a rhesus monkey.