MUKTESAR, FOR THE TWO YEARS ENDING THE 31ST MARCH, 1924 35
Menon, and also by Mr. J. D'Costa (in the clinical observations) in
prosecuting the execution with me of these researches without any regard
to their personal conveniences.
The possibilities of the fly transmission of rinderpest were investigated
in the warm weather of 1923 by Mr. S. K. Sen, Assistant to the Imperial
Entomologist. A commencement was made by the investigation of the
possibility of the mosquito transmission, and on analogy with the work
performed with yellow fever of man, a large number of experiments
were conducted in which Aëdes (Stegomyia) albopicta was tested as a
possible transmitter. The results obtained were of a completely nega-
tive order, indicating the virus soon became inert in the body of the
mosquito.
(b) Rinderpest (Immunity researches). The aims of these researches,
to produce an anti-serum of the highest possible potency at the most
economical rate, have already been mentioned in the section dealing
with the routine manufacture of serum for issue. Briefly, the outcome
of numerous experiments was information to the effect that the proce-
dure of so-called " hyperimmunization " in the production of an anti-
rinderpest serum is not analogous to the practice which goes by the same
name adopted in the manufacture of anti-sera against the pathogenic
bacteria and toxins. Subsequent to the initial treatment of the serum
producers, with a minute dose of virulent material and a controlling
dose of anti-rinderpest serum, there occurs what appears to be a maxi-
mum diffusion of the virus throughout the body, which results in the
development of such a state of immunity on the part of the tissues that
the injection afterwards of the amounts of virus that are contained in
massive quantities of virulent ox blood set up no more than a local dis-
turbance, quite incapable of evoking a tissue response sufficient to drive
up the anti-body content of the blood serum beyond the maximum
titre attained following upon the preliminary intervention. For a
certain limited period following upon the rinderpest reaction, the re-
peated injection of massive quantities of virulent ox blood undoubtedly
has the effect of partially restoring the potency of the blood serum in
anti-bodies, but after the expiry of this lapse of time it has no effect.
Work pointing in this direction has already been published by the authori-
ties working upon the production of a serum against the disease in the
Phillipine Islands, but the most remarkable work illustrating an ana-
logous sequence of phenomena to those which arise in the course of the
development of the immunity of rinderpest is that of Weil and Breinl
recently upon the immunity of small laboratory animals (guinea-pigs
and rabbits) towards the virus of human typhus. (Zeitschrift für Im¬
munitätsforschung und experimentelle Therapie. I Teil. Orig. 1923.
Vol. 37, pp. 441-552.) It has been established here, in a similar manner,
that, following upon the injection of certainly virulent rinderpest material
controlled in regard to its capacity for the development of morbid mani-
festations to such an extent by the simultaneous inoculation of a large
quantity of a potent anti-serum that the infection is rendered " abortive,"
''symptomless," or "blocked-out" clinically, there develops a solid