抄録
In 1948, Dr. G. Dalldorf(1) discovered a new virus pathogenic for both suckling mice and suckling hamsters from the feces of children having symptoms similar to those of poliomyelitis, and the virus was called “Coxsackie Virus”. Thereafter, in U. S. A. and European countries, the same virus strains have been isolated one after another from the patients of some acute febrile illnesses with diverse clinical pictures, namely, non-paralytic poliomyelitis, (1)(2) aseptic meningitis, (5) Bornholm(4)(6) disease (epidemic myalgia or epidemic pleurodynia) or summer grippe(3) and so forth. It is hard to consider, however, these diseases as a single infection, because they show various clinical pictures.
Bornholm disease (epidemic myalgia or epidemic pleurodynia) has been recognized as a commonly occurring disease in the Scandinavian countries for about last twenty years, (6) but there have been no reports on this disease in Japan.
During the months from June to September in 1951, a minor localized outbreak of acute febrile disease of unknown etiology occurred in a factory (Fuji Communication Apparatus Co., Ltd.) . Dr. Fukumi of the National Institute of Health was requested to investigate the causative agent of this epidemic. The investigation of Dr. Fukumi have resulted in the isolation of a virus strain pathogenic for suckling mice from one fecal specimen and two throat washings. The presence of neutralization antibodies for the newly isolated virus was confirmed in the patients' sera. The details of virological studies will be reported by Dr. Fukumi. Therefore, this report describes only the epidemiological and clinical observation of the epidemic.
