EXPERIMENTAL POLIOMYELITIS

Abstract

The histopathology of acute poliomyelitis in both man and monkey has been repeatedly and thoroughly discussed, whereas the stage of recovery and repair has received little attention in the literature. Although residual lesions in the central nervous system of human cases of long standing have been described, the necropsy material has been scarce, since the death of patients during that period depended not on the poliomyelitic infection but on intercurrent illness and accident. Many years of investigations on the monkey have shown a close correlation between the clinical manifestations of the experimental disease in these animals and with those in man, but owing to the severity of the infection, death tended to take place in the acute stages or before recovery had proceeded very far. It was possible, in this laboratory, to keep fifteen Macacus rhesus monkeys alive for periods varying from 19 to 309 days after the onset of