Airborne rabies encephalitis: demonstration of rabies virus in the human central nervous system

Neurology. 1977 Jan;27(1):67-9. doi: 10.1212/wnl.27.1.67.

Abstract

A veterinarian contracted rabies in the course of laboratory work with homogenates of rabid goat brain. Epidemiologic study determined a respiratory mode of transmission. After a fulminant encephalitic illness, formed rabies virions were identified in the synaptic zones of the olfactory glomeruli. Identification, isolation, experimental disease production, and tissue cytopathic effects of virus recovered from the brain fulfilled Koch's postulates in this unusual instance of virus disease of the nervous system.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Air Microbiology
  • Brain / microbiology*
  • Brain Diseases / pathology
  • Encephalitis / immunology
  • Encephalitis / microbiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Occupational Diseases / transmission
  • Olfactory Bulb / ultrastructure
  • Rabies / immunology
  • Rabies / microbiology*
  • Rabies / pathology
  • Rabies / transmission
  • Rabies virus / isolation & purification*
  • Rabies virus / ultrastructure
  • Synapses / ultrastructure
  • Veterinary Medicine