1. A method of testing sera for protective power against yellow fever is described and designated as the intraperitoneal protection test in mice.
2. The test consists essentially of the inoculation of mice intra-peritoneally with yellow fever virus, fixed for mice, together with the serum to be tested, and the simultaneous injection of starch solution into the brain to localize the virus. If the serum lacks protective power the mice die of yellow fever encephalitis.
3. The test is highly sensitive. Consequently it is useful in epidemiological studies to determine whether individuals have ever had yellow fever and in tests to find whether vaccinated persons or animals have in reality been immunized.
4. When mice were given large intraperitoneal injections of yellow fever virus fixed for mice, the virus could be recovered from the blood for 4 days although encephalitis did not occur. If the brain was mildly injured at the time of the intraperitoneal injection, the symptoms of yellow fever encephalitis appeared 6 days later, but the virus was then absent from the blood.
5. Strains of white mice vary greatly in their susceptibility to yellow fever.
1. After preliminary experiments in monkeys, 15 persons were actively immunized by a single injection of a dried mixture of living yellow fever virus, fixed for mice, and human immune serum, with separate injections of enough additional serum to make up the amount required for protection.
2. One person was similarly immunized by injecting immune serum and dried virus separately.
3. By titration of the sera of vaccinated persons in mice, it was shown that the immunity rose in a few weeks to a height comparable to that reached after an attack of yellow fever, and remained there throughout an observation period of 6 months.
4. Yellow fever virus could not be recovered from the blood of vaccinated persons or monkeys, except when the latter had received less than the minimal effective amount of immune serum.
5. Neutralization of yellow fever virus by immune serum took place very slowly in vitro at room temperature in our experiments, and could not have been an appreciable factor in vaccination with the serum virus mixtures.
6. A mixture of fixed virus and immune serum retained its immunizing power for 8 months when dried in the frozen state and sealed in glass.
7. It appears that the immunizing reaction after yellow fever vaccination was a part of a true infectious process, as was also the observed leucopenia.
the liver, whereby in case of necessity function is car¬ ried on efficiently by a relatively small proportion of liver substance; (d) the fact that the prognosis in many of these cases is controlled by factors other than decreased liver function, and (e) the lack at pres¬ ent of correlation of anatomic, clinical and functional findings occasioned by the newness of the subject. The results, however, encourage us in the belief that scien¬ tifically and also clinically this subject is worthy of extensive investigation.
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