CAUSE OF PARALYSIS

Evening Star, Issue 20486, 17 May 1930, Page 20

CAUSE OF PARALYSIS

WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL ; RESEARCHES \ LADY BACTERIOLOGIST’S DISCOVERY, j New microbes have to wait a long time nowadays before being recognised by the best bacteriologists, and it will necessarily be . many months before anyone can confirm* or refute the remarkable observations made by. Miss Kathleen Chevassut at the Westminster Hospital (writes the medical correspondent of ’he ‘Observer’}, In publishing her paper in its current issue, the * Lancet ’ says that her discovery, “if it is substantiated, will certainly rank among the ■ foremost achievements of bacteriology.” Biit even in the best regulated laboratories there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and in work of this kind seeing should no longer bo believing. Miss Chevassut’s results are interesting for various reasons. In the first place, the disease she has been studying, disseminated sclerosis, is one of the commonest chronic disorders of the nervous system, and by , causing paralysis is responsible for much and prolonged suffering. Any information about its cause is therefore received with eagerness in the hope that it may. lead to some effective treatment, NATURE OF THE VIRUS. Secondly, the report is welcome because it suggests that the new organism—if it is an organism—is going to be useful for experimental purposes. It apparently belongs to the group of filtrabb viruses (virus-poison), for it can be cultivated from fluid which has passed through suitable filters. It is therefore presumably akin to the viruses of smallpox, measles, foot-and-mouth disease, distemper, and many other conditions of great importance to mankind. On the other hand it differs from them in that it can be grown in an artificial medium provided that human blood serum is added. The report of the Medical Research Council appearing last week said of the filtrable viruses:— Whether these “ viruses ” are organised as minute, ultra-microscopio bodies is still an open question; in any case, they are presumably too small to have an organisation similar to that of such cells as have hitherto, been regarded as primary units of living matter. Nobody has yet succeeded in preparing an artificial fluid which will, in itself, provide conditions in which these viruses will produce themselves and multiply; some of them, however, will grow in artificial conditions if a piece of surviving tissue, take-' from a freshlykilled animal, is added to a suitable medium. It seems to be characteristic of a virus that it can multiply only in the presence of living cells which it can infect. Miss Chevassut’s virus, however, “can bo cultured,” she says, “in an artificial medium comparatively free from cells,” and accordingly lends itself to accurate observation. It seems to bear a close resemblance to the organism of bovine pleuro-pheumonia, which is regarded as a connecting link between the filtrable viruses and ordinary bacteria. SOURCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF, THE “ORGANISM.” Disseminated sclerosis being a nervous disease, it is likely that the infective agent is located in the' fluid which bathes the spinal cord. Miss Chevassut has not found it there, and this is perhaps surprising; but on adding infected spinal fluid to a special culture medium she has “grown”' particulate bodies which she Believes to be living organisms. They are ■ less than one five-thou-sandth of a millimetre _in diameter, and take the form of minute globules and granules when, examined and photographed by special optical methods. She says that they apparently go through a definite life cycle.It has to be remembered, however,' that at these tremendous magnifications appearances are deceptive. Moreover, the very constancy of her findings—the globules were seen in cultures from 176 out of ISB cases of disseminated sclerosis—should make for caution. Such a result, as the ‘Lancet’ says, is almost too good to be true, and it is possible that some bio('emical reaction between the spinal fluid and tlie medium may, be responsible for the objects seen. At th© same_ time, even the discovery of a reaction or this sort need not be despised, since it would at least prove helpful in the hard task diagnosing early cases of the disease. VACCINE TREATMENT. From the public point of viewwhaf is of most immediate interest is the effect of treatment with the vaccine which Las been prepared from the virus. Here, however, the ground is at least as difficult as elsewhere, and it may be years before any certainty, is reached. The disease is one_ which tends to improve for long periods in the natural course of events, and it would be rash to declare that tho diminution of symptoms in any particular case was due to the treatment adopted.At present we can hardly say more than that the results _ reported are suggestive. The possibility that the casual organism has been isolated gives the neurologist _ something definite to work on, and it is earnestly to_ he hoped that success will be _ attained* Meanwhile, it must be admitted that, prima facie, disseminated sclerosis does' not seem to offer an especially promising opportunity for this particular line of treatment.

Experimental attempts to infect monkeys—which are generally regarded as susceptible to the disease—have yet to be reported in full, but do not appear to have yielded uniform results.It is not unlikely, however, that valuable information will bo derived from animal inoculation.