Activity of Herpetic Virus in Mice

Abstract

Investigation concerning the nature and activity of the filtrable is limited for the most part to animal experimentation until their cultivation without the body is a practical accomplishment. This limitation is increased further by the host specificity of some of the viruses. No suitable test animal has been found for the viruses of encephalitis lethargica and varicella. Infectious myxoma and virus 111 appear to be specific for the rabbit. The filtrable chicken tumors grow only in chickens. Hog cholera, so far as our present knowledge extends, cannot be transferred to other animals. The guinea-pig is, apparently, the only animal which reacts to the salivary-gland virus. The polyhedral diseases of caterpillars are markedly specific, while the sacbrood virus affects only the larvae of honey bees and no other insect. Monkeys seem to be the only available laboratory animals which respond to the of measles and poliomyelitis, at least to such an extent that they can be used for experimental purposes. South African horse sickness can be conferred to dogs with some degree of success. While the mentioned above are specific or transmissible to only one other species, others infect a larger range of hosts. Borna disease of horses, for example, can be transferred to the monkey, rabbit, guinea-pig, rat and mouse. Cattle, sheep, goats and deer are known to be susceptible to the rinder-pest virus. Fowl pox and fowl plague are interesting virus diseases from the viewpoint of host specificity, since both are readily transmissible to a number of birds, but neither has been shown to produce symptoms in animals of another class. Foot-andmouth disease affects a large number of ruminants and also swine, dogs, cats and, according to some reports, chickens as well as man can become infected. The disease can be reproduced experimentally in the guineapig and perhaps in the rabbit. Rabies virus is thought to be capable of experimental transmission to practically all carnivorous animals and a large number of other mammals. Chickens, as well as frogs, have been reported as being susceptible to the experimental disease. Cowpox has a variety of hosts amongst the mammals, and in respect to this virus