NEUTRALIZATION OF THE VENEZUELAN ENCEPHALOMYELITIS VIRUS BY HUMAN SERUMS

Abstract

A few years after Meyer, Haring and Howitt¹ isolated the western equine encephalomyelitis virus and TenBroeck and Merrill² showed its difference from the eastern encephalomyelitis strain, reports about similar agents in South America began to appear. In 1935 Rosenbusch³ in Argentina described an encephalomyelitic virus resembling the western strain. The encephalomyelitis viruses found in Peru⁴ and Chile⁵ are considered to be of the same type. In Brazil some neurotropic viruses of equine origin were also isolated, as, for example, that from Bahia.⁶ Nevertheless, the immunologic and pathologic characters of the last mentioned rank it better among rabies viruses.⁷ As to Venezuela, the equine encephalomyelitis began to spread in 1936 and the corresponding virus was isolated by Kubeš and Rios⁸ in 1938. This virus proved to be decidedly different immunologically from both the western and the eastern encephalomyelitis strains⁹ and also from