[Pathomorphological and immunofluorescent studies of smallpox vaccine neurotropism]

Experiments were conducted on guinea pigs sensitized with the AK C-vaccine components. In intracardiac injection with smallpox vaccine there was shown a possibility of development of marked hemodynamic disturbances, of the inflammatory-dystrophic processes of irreversibel character, with a subsequent neuronophagia and demyelinization. Injection of smallpox vaccine into the circulation of intact guinea pigs was accompanied by development in the nervous system of insignificant circulatory disturbances and of the inflammatory dystrophic phenomena of reversible character. A method of immunofluorescence was used and the antigen of the vaccine virus was revealed in the neurons of the brain and the spinal cord of the sensitized and intact animals. Marked hemodynamic and insignificant inflammatory-dystrophic processes were revealed in the nervous system of a child which died of the post-vaccinal encephalitis; an antigen of the smallpox virus was found by the immunofluorescent method in the nerve cells and the vessels in various portions of the nervous system.