THE SURVIVAL OF THE HOG-CHOLERA VIRUS IN LABORATORY ANIMALS, PARTICULARLY THE RAT

Abstract

The attempts to demonstrate the virus of hog-cholera in rabbits 12 days after intravenous and intraabdominal inoculations were unsuccessful. Likewise the attempts to show that the virus might be found in the guinea pig 6 and in the pigeon 7 days after inoculation were negative. It was shown, however, that the virus can be found in the bodies of white rats for at least 7 days after either intraabdominal or intracerebral inoculations. One attempt to demonstrate it after 10 days was negative. From the fact that the rats show no evidence of illness such as loss in weight, pyrexia, or visible pathological changes, and that after either intraabdominal or intracerebral inoculation the virus is only found in the abdominal organs and possibly only in the spleen, it seems likely that it does not multiply but that in the rat tissue, particularly in the spleen, it is not destroyed so rapidly as in the organs of other animals. Careful study of the records fails to show that passing one strain of virus alternately through pigs and rats for three transfers in each species changes the virulence for swine or causes the virus to become virulent for rats. Attempts to introduce the virus into the body of the rat by feeding virulent material and an attempt to pass the virus from one lot of rats to another were unsuccessful, so that we have evidence from the experiment that the rat does not play a part in the transmission of hog-cholera.