Abstract
Within the past two years, since the autumn of 1950, scattered outbreaks of unknown etiologic polyradiculoneuritis, “Landry-Guillain-Barré's syndrome” occurred in these parts bordering the Inland Sea of Japan.
I. During the summer of 1952, the neutralizing antibodies of 9 sera of patients with Landry-Guillain-Barré's syndrome and 10 sera of poliomyelitis patients (spinal form) were examined for the Lansing strain of poliomyelitis virus. Five sera of Landry-Guillain-Barré's syndrome were positive; 3 sera of them were equivocal; only one serum was negative. But in the cases of poliomyelitis only 2 sera were positive; all other sera were negative.
On the other hand, the average age of Landry-Guillain-Barré's patients was 6 years and that of poliomyelitis patients was 2 years.
Serum antibodies capable of neutralizing the Lansing type become more frequent with increasing age during childhood, and therefore, our results seem to be insufficient to show what relationship this type of virus bears to the etiology of Landry-Guillain-Barré's syndrome.
II. During the summer of 1952, the hemagglutination inhibition antibodies of 8 Landry-Guillain-Barré sera and 5 poliomyelitis sera were examined on the hemagglutination of O-type human erythrocytes caused by New Castle disease virus.
But in all tested sera hemagglutination inhibition antibodies were negative.
Therefore it seems that there is no etiologic relationship between Landry-Guillain-Barré's syndrome and New Castle disease virus. (See page 27-31.)
