Mouse Test

Last summer the nation was excited by the invention of two vaccines to protect children against infantile paralysis (TIME, July 16; Aug. 27). There remained to be invented a simple, speedy way of finding out what children are susceptible to infantile paralysis and therefore need such vaccine.

Last week, in ample time for the regular summer season of infantile paralysis, Dr. Maurice Brodie of Manhattan, one of the vaccine inventors, disclosed a simple, speedy test of a child's susceptibility to the disease. A mouse and a special filtrate, which any careful bacteriologist can make with a few mice and some potent infantile paralysis virus, are all a doctor needs.

For the test a little of the child's blood serum is injected into a healthy mouse. Then the mouse receives a little of Dr. Brodie's infected filtrate. If the child is immune, nothing will happen to the mouse. But, wrote Dr. Brodie in Science last week, if the child is susceptible to infantile paralysis, after two days "the clinical picture in the mouse is quite acute. It begins with irritability, jumpiness, ruffled hair and goes on to ataxia [dragging] of the hind legs, humped back, convulsions, circular movements, twisting of the head and sometimes ptosis [drooping] of the eyelids. The animals usually die within a few hours after the onset of the symptoms."

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