RELATION OF STREPTOCOCCI TO THE SPINAL FLUID IN EXPERIMENTAL POLIOMYELITIS

Abstract

Rosenow and his collaborators and others¹ have insisted on the identity of streptococci with the filtrable virus of poliomyelitis, a view that has not been generally accepted. For example, Bull² expressed the opinion that the bacteria are secondary invaders in the disease, and Smillie³ and Amoss⁴ viewed the cocci as being agonal invaders. Recently Long, Olitsky and Stewart¹ showed that there may be still another source of the streptococci; namely, the air of the place in which the cultures are made. Furthermore, their experiments revealed that cultures of other organisms, such as staphylococci, diphtheroids, spore-bearing rods, and other miscellaneous, familiar micro-organisms, can be obtained frequently from the ground up brains of monkeys with poliomyelitis, the source of these being also the air. Certain biologic tests were reported which demonstrate the wide variation of the effects of streptococci from those of the true filtrable virus of