1959 Volume 71 Issue 3supplement-1 Pages 43-55
1. By applying ACTH in various concentrations by different routes of administration and also by inoculating virus at different concentrations for the experimental Japanese B encephalitis with the use of mice, the preventive and curative experiments with ACTH were performed but no effect of this drug could be recognized.
The reason for this ineffectiveness seems to lie in the fact that mice will not develop fever even when afflicted with Japanese B encephalitis and that the metabolism of steroid hormones and the susceptibility to the encephalitis virus differ from those of human.
2. Likewise in the treatment of mice with experimental encephalitis predonisolone and DOCA in the same manner as above, no effect could at all be observed.
3. In the ACTH treatment of six monkeys given inoculation of Japanese B encephalitis virus via the nasal cavity, three were saved from death, Even in the monkeys infected with Japanese B encephalitis virus the rise in the body temperature is less than that in man, and therefore, not much antipyretic effect of ACTH can be expected. However, in view of the fact that the monkeys afflicted with Japanese B encephalitis are generally believed to die 100 per cent, our excellent result with monkeys as afore-mentioned seems to support the efficacy of the ACTH treatment on human Japanese B encephalitis, what we have been advocating as the therapeutic method.
