Louping-Ill in Monkeys. Infection by the Nose

Abstract

Louping-Ill as is now known from the work carried out at the Moredun Institute, Edinburgh, during the last 10 years can be transmitted by the tickIxodes ricinus. Under natural conditions the disease is probably most commonly spread by this means. The possibility that infection might result, at any rate under experimental conditions, by other means than the intervention of an arthropod vector has been the starting point of the following investigation. The nasopharynx as a possible portal of entry was considered first because it is so often incriminated in many of the virus diseases of man. Furthermore, Webster and Fite (1933) and Elford and Galloway (1933) have shown that mice can be infected with the virus of louping-ill by the nasal instillation of potent filtrates or suspensions of infective brain. Fresh importance has been added to this alternative route of entry of the virus by the occurrence of a number of cases of laboratory infections amongst those who have studied the experimental disease. Rivers and Schwentker (1934), who have recorded these cases, give reasons for incriminating the nose as the portal of entry.