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Antibody in Relation to Immunity in Acute Poliomyelitis¹

Research Institute of Cutaneous Medicine and Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Abstract

1. The antiviral substance occurring in the blood appears to be a true antibody capable of neutralizing but not necessarily destroying the virus of poliomyelitis.

2. This antibody occurring in the blood of normal human beings appears to be identical in its properties to that produced by infection and vaccination of monkeys and human beings.

3. The origin of the natural antibody is uncertain but it may be the result of unrecognized infection, antigenic stimulation by common substances or haptens occurring in various bacteria and other substances or the product of normal growth.

4. The prophylactic value of this antibody in normal and immune sera for human beings is uncertain but probably slight and of short duration due in part to inadequate dosage.

5. There is no irrefutable statistical proof of the efficacy of the antibody in the treatment of poliomyelitis of human beings nor any absolute proof of its complete ineffectiveness. It is possible and probable, however, that large amounts administered early in the disease may effectually prevent progressive infection of the spinal cord by the neutralization of virus.

6. The antibody, however, has demonstrated some protective activity in monkeys inoculated intracerebrally with virus and especially when administered in large amounts per body weight early in the incubation period.

7. The immunity produced in monkeys and human beings by infection or immunization with living virus (active, glycerinated and ricinoleated) appears to be largely cellular (tissue) but may be partly humoral due to antibody.

8. Over 90 per cent of monkeys immunized with living virus by various investigators showed the presence of antibody in the blood on the basis of serum neutralization tests. Practically 100 per cent injected subcutaneously or intracutaneously with 5 doses of ricinoleated virus in amounts of 0.1 to 0.5 cc. per kilogram showed the presence of the antibody in the blood. In our laboratory the majority of these monkeys were completely protected against the intracerebral injection of virulent virus and we believe that the resistance, while probably largely cellular, may be due in part at least to the antibody in the blood.

Footnotes

¹ Read before the joint session of the American Association of Immunologists and the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists, April 9, 1936.