PHYSIOLOGICAL STIMULATION OF THE CHOROID PLEXUS AND EXPERIMENTAL POLIOMYELITIS

Abstract

The experiments recorded in this paper serve, in the first place, to confirm the experiments of Dixon and Halliburton on the stimulating effect of intravenous injections of extracts of choroid plexus in the secretion of the cerebrospinal fluid, and extend their observations to monkeys. They bring out also the variable effects of the virus of poliomyelitis, variations affected by the quality of the virus and also by the individual powers of resistance to infection possessed by individual monkeys. These factors of variation must be taken into account in performing and interpreting experiments on infection and particularly those on immunity and specific therapy in relation to poliomyelitis. In general it may be said that experimental infection by way of the blood is not easy to produce in monkeys unless some contributing factor, such as the existence of a coincident aseptic meningitis, operates at the same time. And yet Experiments 1 and 2 show that when the strength of the virus is great the injection of relatively considerable quantities suffices to induce infection and paralysis, but not in all instances. The chief outcome of the experiments has been to determine the fact that when the intravenous inoculation of the virus does not in itself suffice to induce infection and paralysis, the intravenous injection of extracts of the choroid plexus, which in themselves excite the secretory functions which preside over the formation of the cerebrospinal fluid, is powerless to modify this result. This fact would seem to be of interest and importance, since it has already been shown that very slight structural changes in the meningeal-choroidal complex suffice to make possible or certain infection under these circumstances. Apparently mere augmentation, from time to time, of the secretory functions of the choroid plexus, through intravenous injection of an extract of the choroid plexus and while the virus is still circulating, is insufficient to insure passage of the virus from the blood into the nervous tissues, upon which infection depends. Neither does the augmentation exercise a restraining influence on the development of infection otherwise capable of taking place.