Experiments on the Production of Antipoliomyelitic Serum in Rabbits¹

One can find in the extensive literature on experimental poliomyelitis only a few scattered statements of experiments on the production of antipoliomyelitic serum in rabbits, and these statements, furthermore, are as contradictory as those regarding the question of the etiology of poliomyelitis and the susceptibility of rabbits to this disease. Flexner (1), in 1910, stated that rabbits which had been given injections of active poliomyelitis virus did not seem to yield immunity principles that had restraining or neutralizing effect on the virus either in vitro or within the body. Amoss (2), in 1917, reported that the serum of rabbits which he had injected intravenously with a heavy suspension of washed cultures of globoid bodies also failed to neutralize the filterable virus. On the other hand, Nuzum (3) claimed that he had succeeded in producing antipoliomyelitic serum in rabbits by immunizing them with strains of streptococci which he and several others believed to be the causative agents of poliomyelitis.