Some Properties of the Scrapie Agent and Its Behavior in Mice

Discussion and summaryThe agent isolated by Chandler in mice inoculated intracerebrally with brain tissue from goats affected with experimental scrapie can be passed serially in mice by this route. In the Rocky Mountain Laboratory stock of Swiss mice it causes a relentlessly progressive, and invariably fatal, disease of the central nervous system, usually after an incubation period of 4 to 5 months. The disease is characterized clinically by incoordination of gait, muscular atrophy, and drowsiness and neuropathologically by prominent astrocytosis, degeneration of neurons, and spongy alteration of the neuroparenchyma.That the agent causing this disease in mice is the transmissible agent of scrapie may be questioned. At present, identification of the scrapie agent can be made only by observing its pathogenic capacity in susceptible sheep and goats. In these hosts it induces a distinctive clinicopathologic picture whose essential features also characterize the infection in mice. Thus, the long incubation per...