Although many investigators have been actively engaged in experimental work with the virus of lymphocytic choriomeningitis or with infected animals, comparatively few have contracted the disease or, of those tested, few have developed neutralizing antibodies in their serum.1 L\l=e'\pineand Sautter 2 were first to report a laboratory infection of lymphocytic choriomeningitis. Virus was isolated from their patient's blood and urine, and complement fixing antibodies were demonstrated in the patient's serum during convalescence. The serums of 2 persons who had worked for two years with the same virus strain and infected animals failed to fix complement. L\l=e' \pine and Sautter mention no attempt to detect virus neutralizing substances in their patient's serum. They believe that their patient became infected nine days before onset of symptoms by fragments of contaminated glass that were accidentally splattered into her eye during the process of grinding infected guinea pig tissues with powdered glass. More recently Armstrong and Hornibrook 3 have described a case without central nervous system manifestations in a laboratory worker engaged in choriomeningitis research at the National Institute of Health, but the manner of infection is not discussed. The virus was isolated from the blood, and the patient developed a high titer of specific neutralizing antibodies six weeks after the attack. Armstrong4 also states that "a number of cases of choriomeningitis have developed among laboratory personnel handling infected mice." He, however, does not elaborate on details of the degree of contact or manner of infection.The usual experience of noninfectivity by exposure to the virus and infected animals among laboratory workers is also borne out in animal experimentation. Various workers 6 have noted that normal mice and guinea pigs are not readily infected by contact with artificially infected animals. Traub 6 and Haas,7 however, have shown that white mice transmit infection to their offspring in utero and in infancy and that naturally infected mice transmit infection by contact more readily than artificially infected animals.Because the natural mode of transmission of lymphocytic choriomeningitis in either man or infected animals is unknown, we feel that it is important to record the following case of laboratory infection in one of us (A. M.), in which there is evidence that infection came from contact with infected monkey lice. This is discussed in detail. The virus of lymphocytic choriomeningitis was isolated from the spinal fluid during the acute stage, and both neutralizing and complement fixing antibodies against the isolated and two known strains of virus were detected in the serum during subsequent recovery. Blood specimens were obtained at frequent intervals during and following convalescence and as long as twenty-six months after the attack in order to determine the time of appearance and respective titers of complement fixing and neutralizing antibodies in his serum.
REPORT OF CASEA. M., a white man aged 23, admitted...
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