Though most of our studies since 1962 were directed to getting viruses out of environmental samples and into cell cultures for detection, it became clear that cell cultures were not the only means of virus detection and, in some instances, were of no use whatever in this application. A number of virus-detection methods based on enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) had been described by 1980 for use in rapid clinical diagnosis (Deng and Cliver 1984) . Each of these used selected antibodies for individual viruses. In that pooled human immune serum globulin (HISG) contains antibodies reflecting the combined immunologic experience of the donor population, we considered how HISG might be used in a broad-spectrum virus detection method. Five human enteroviruses, reovirus 1, and two porcine enteroviruses were selected for testing by a method modified from that of Herrmann et al. (Herrmann et al. 1979) . Wells in a 96-well, polystyrene microtiter plate were pre-coated with poly-L-lysine. Virus suspensions (various concentrations) were incubated at 4°C for 20-24 h in these wells, after which the wells were washed with PBS ? Tween-20 and bovine serum albumin. HISG that had been absorbed with host cell antigens was added to the wells and incubated for 30 min at 37°C, after which the wells were washed again. Goat anti-human IgG labeled with peroxidase was incubated in each well for 2 h at 37°C, and the wells were washed again and reacted with 2,2 0 -azino-di-3-ethyl-benzthiazoline-6-sulfonate-hydrogen peroxide substrate for 20 min at room temperature and stopped with hydrofluoric acid. Optical densities were read at 410 nm in a microplate reader. With a positive:negative ratio of 2 as the cut-off, the human enteroviruses and reovirus were detected at levels of 10 4 -10 6 infectious units (PFU or MPNCU) per well; no signal was obtained with the porcine enteroviruses. In that the reaction was not typespecific, positive signals from two different viruses in the same well augmented each other. We did not pursue this method further because of its limited sensitivity, but there might well be ways of applying HISG for broad-spectrum immunomagnetic capture before RT-PCR testing.