Rabbit Pox

Abstract

Within the period of 2{ years, the rabbit breeding colony maintained at the Institute for studies on constitution has been the locus of three separate epidemics of a disease, which because of its similarity to small pox in man, has been called rabbit pox. The first epidemic occurred in the spring of 1930 and was limited to a small colony of animals housed in a single room. The disease was characteristically mild with low morbidity and mortality rates. As soon as its contagious nature was recognized, animals presenting the clinical features were segregated or sacrificed, with the resulting abatement and disappearance of the disease in epidemic form. A few transmission experiments were attempted but without definite success. This outbreak was not studied systematically, but aerobic and anaerobic cultures of blood and tissues from animals with active lesions and animals that died of the disease were negative.The colony was thereafter maintained under vigilant scrutiny for the first evidence of a recurrence of the affection, but no case was detected until the latter part of 1932, when the disease again appeared, this time with explosive violence and in a highly malignant form. The clinical, pathological and epidemiological aspects of this second epidemic have been the subjects of reports by Greene (1-5). Transmission experiments conducted by Pearce, Rosahn and Hu (6) were successful, and the etiological agent was identified through clinical, pathological, immunological and host-range experiments as a filterable virus, qualitatively related to vaccine virus, but more virulent.With the subsidence of the second epidemic approximately 2 months 331

Animal Models of Orthopoxvirus Infection

“…Because this rabbit disease was caused by a poxvirus and had many clinical and gross pathological features similar to those of smallpox in humans, it was named rabbitpox. 39,40,103 In the 1940s, outbreaks of a similar poxviral disease occurred in rabbits housed at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands). In contrast to the cases at the Rockefeller Institute, affected rabbits at the University of Utrecht typically had few skin lesions, if any; this disease became known as pockless rabbitpox.…”

Rabbitpox: a model of airborne transmission of smallpox

“…Histologically, the epidermis of the skin and the mucosal epithelium of the mucous membranes display ballooning degeneration, necrosis and vesicle formation, accompanied by varying degrees of inflammation (Rosahn & Hu, 1935;Bras, 1952a, b;D. K. Nichols, unpublished data).…”

“…Rabbitpox was first described by Greene after three outbreaks in rabbits in the laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research between 1930and 1933(Greene, 1933, 1934aRosahn & Hu, 1935;Rosahn et al, 1936). The disease was very contagious and the mortality rate was high (up to 50 %).…”

“…Testicular lesions frequently occur in humans with smallpox and rabbits with rabbitpox and characteristically consist of foci of interstitial necrosis, haemorrhage and inflammation (Greene, 1934b;Rosahn & Hu, 1935;Bras, 1952a;Lancaster et al, 1966;Nalca et al, 2008). Similar foci of necrosis and inflammation are also often present in the ovaries of affected rabbits (Greene, 1934b;Nalca et al, 2008).…”