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The Potency and Changes with Storage of Poliomyelitis Serum¹

From the Department of Bacteriology, New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical School and the Bureau of Laboratories, Department of Health, City of New York

Abstract

Pooled specimens of poliomyelitis convalescent serum vary considerably in potency, as would be expected since serums from convalescent donors vary in titer and some even fail to show any demonstrable antibodies. A rough test for each individual donor would be practical in the case of adults, either convalescent or so called "normals" (8) from whom considerable amounts of serum could be obtained.

Serum that has been preserved with 0.2 per cent phenol and kept on ice can be used clinically at the end of a year, for it has lost approximately only 20 per cent of its neutralizing power. At the end of the second year, however, it is only about one-half of the original strength. At the end of the fourth year, it is approximately one-quarter its original strength. This agrees with Burnet and MacNamara (9) who found that serum stored for three years still had neutralizing power.

With the use of a standard technic such as that used in the above work, it is possible to compare the strength of other poliomyelitis serums with that of human convalescent serum.

The present work indicates that human poliomyelitis convalescent serum is highly viricidal in vitro, for as little as 0.04 cc. neutralized 80 paralyzing doses of virus. However, this does not indicate that the virus can be neutralized in vivo, as it is probably fixed to the neurones (10) and cannot be destroyed by the serum.

Footnotes

¹ This research was aided by grants from the New York Foundation and the Provincial Laboratories, Province of Quebec.

² Fellow in Medicine of the National Research Council.