THE EXPERIMENTAL TRANSMISSION OF A VIRUS CAUSING HYPERGAMMAGLOBULINEMIA IN MINK: SOURCES AND MODES OF INFECTION.

Hypergammaglobulinemia (Aleutian disease or AD) of mink has been produced by the inoculation of afifected tissue suspensions and cell-free filtrates (Henson et al, 1962b, 1963a; Karstad and Pridem, 1962; Russell et al, 1962; Trautwein et al, 1962; P. G. White, personal communication). The filterable substance is particulate, since it can nearly all be removed from aqueous suspension by centrifugation at 95,000 rcf for 1 hour (Henson et al, 1963a). The causal agent (which we will provisionally call a virus) in the form of a crudely ground tissue suspension is resistant to 0.3(^) formalin for 2 weeks, but not for 40 weeks, at 5 C (Henson et al, 1962b). The present paper confirms the demonstration of the virus in the urine (Kenyon et al, 1963) and forms part of an investigation of the natural history of the disease among mink.