Use of Living Attenuated Measles-Virus Vaccine in Early Infancy

Abstract

ENDERS and his associates^{1 2 3 4} have described the recovery of measles virus in human and animal-cell cultures and the propagation of the virus in embryonated hen's eggs and in cultures of chick embryo. Virus grown in tissue culture was characterized by marked attenuation of virulence for monkeys, failing to cause clinical illness, detectable viremia or recognizable changes in the central nervous system. Such attenuated virus induced only mild clinical illness in children inoculated subcutaneously. Neutralizing and complement-fixing antibodies against measles developed in the recipients in titers comparable to those of convalescents from natural measles.The present study was undertaken to determine . . .