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Show kephalitis: Cause And Cure itudied by University Doctor f ' ' , "1 JylVARG. NELSON. v , Chronicle Staff Writer ' " tikes, mosquitos and enceph-fc enceph-fc These three subjects are i to be near the bottom of lie's popularity list, but to Louis P. Gebhardt of the iersity Hospital they mean a ! dollar a year grant from National Institute of Allergy ! Infectious Diseases. i COMING of summer ally means an outbreak of iiern Equine Encephalitis among horses, and more ';J among humans as well, t the horses never show any a of infection during the win-Tlie win-Tlie Mystery of the Over- Wintering Virus" v was finally Solved by Dr. Gebhardt; "professor "profes-sor and head of the Department of Micro Biology at the University Univer-sity College of Medicine. The encephalitis virus is carried car-ried by the "Culex Tarsalis" mosquito and is transferred to snakes either in the spring or fall when the preferred food of the mosquito, warm blooded animals, ani-mals, become harder to find. The virus remains in the. reptile's body through the winter, however how-ever the form it takes and the location of its sojourn in the snake's body are still unknown. In the spring when the snakes are once again bitten by the members of the new brood of "tarsalis" mosquitos the virus is returned to its original host. the lab, are found to have WEE virus in -their blood pr oving that an infected female snake can transfer the virus to her offspring. off-spring. John Stanton is one of the hospital staff members who nurse-maids the snake ranch on the fifth floor of the University Hospital. He not only has several sev-eral cages of native Utah snakes to take care of but also must watch over a South American "Boa constrictor." There are more snakes in the hospital than one might expect to find outside of the psych ward, in fact if they ever got loose the entire hospital might end up under psychiatric care, or perhaps as coronary victims. True to the mark of medicine, these three and many other snakes are kept at the medical center by John Stanton. After a maturation period of 10 to 14 days the virus is ready to be transferred to either a horse or human where it can cause its disease. THE UNCOVERING of the life cycle of the WEE virus not only gives epidemiologists and microbiologists valuable information infor-mation about the nature of the virus, but also has enabled means of control to be devised. An interesting aspect of the disease is that many of the baby snakes born in the wild, and in I . |
