ENCEPHALITIS WITH INTRANUCLEAR INCLUSION BODIES

Abstract

The presence of type A intranuclear inclusion bodies in the central nervous system of patients dying of encephalitis is a rare phenomenon. Dawson¹ has reported 2 such cases. In a review of the literature in which so-called inclusion bodies have been described he found no previous reports in which the inclusions were clearly distinguished from products of cellular degeneration. He concluded that no distinctive cellular changes characteristic of virus disease have previously been reported in cases of human encephalitis. Recently, Smith, Lennette and Reames² reported the only case of fatal encephalitis, that of an infant, in which intranuclear inclusion bodies were present and a virus identical with that of herpes simplex was isolated from the brain. Sabin and Wright³ described a case of fatal virus infection in a laboratory worker in whom transverse myelitis and visceral necrosis developed after the bite of a monkey. Sabin⁴ isolated