Abortive rabies in rabbits and white rats infected intracerebrally

Non-fatal rabies was successfully reproduced in rabbits infected intracerebrally with a highly pathogenic strain of street virus isolated from a man who had died of hydrophobia abter a dog bite and in white rats infected intracerebrally with the CVS strain of fixed virus. All the animals were pretreated with a sublethal intraperitoneal dose of live rabies virus. The surviving animals showed residual neurological symptoms (except one rat) in the form of paresis (both mild and marked) and high titres of virus-neutralizing antibody in the brain comparable to the level of serum antibody. Successful reproduction of abortive rabies in rabbits infected intracerebrally with the classical strain of street virus suggests that different forms of rabies infection may probably exist in nature.