1964 Volume 17 Issue 5 Pages 259-265
Since bacillary dysentery in monkeys was first reported by Ravaut and Dopter (1909), many investigators have published articles on the isolation of Shigella bacilli from monkeys and on dysentery which developed in captive monkeys (Sauer and Fegley, 1960; Matsuoka et al., 1962; Muto et al., 1963) .
In care of monkeys used as experimental animals in the National Institute of Health (NIH), enteritis is one of the major disease problems; about 60 per cent of natural. death cases where autopsy was carried out from April of 1962 through March of 1963, which equalled about 10 per cent of the animals conditioned during the period, had. gross lesions of enteritis (Table 1, Honjo et al. 1964) . Shigella bacilli were, at the same time, frequently isolated from stools of apparently healthy monkeys as well as from those with diarrhea, and from the affected areas of the large intestines in natural death cases.
In order to clarify the relationship between Shigella infection and enteritis in monkeys, it has become necessary to obtain sufficient inf ormations concerning the aspect of natural infection of Shigella bacilli in monkeys.
The present paper is concerned with the infection rates for Shigella bacilli with respect to the habitats of monkeys, the seasons of arrival at NIH and the conditioning period, and the relationship between the property of stools or macroscopic changes of the large intestine and the presence of Shigella.
