Reply To: A Hello to Virology
“Experimental Investigations Regarding the Etiology of Dengue Fever”
…The findings of which were:
1. No organism, either bacterium or protozoon (sic), can be demonstrated in either fresh or stained specimens of [infected] blood with the microscope.
2. The red-blood count in dengue is normal.
3. There occur no characteristic morphological changes in the red or white corpuscles in this disease.
4. Dengue is characterized by a well-marked leucopenia, the polymorphonuclear leucocytes being decreased, as a rule, while there is a marked increase in the small lymphocytes.
5. No organism of etiological significance occurred in broth or citrated blood cultures.
6. The intravenous inoculation of unfiltered dengue blood into healthy men is followed by a typical attack of dengue.
7. The intravenous inoculation of filtered dengue blood into healthy men is followed by a typical attack of the disease.
8. The cause of the disease is, therefore, probably ultramicroscopic in size.
9. Dengue can be transmitted by the mosquito, Culex jatigans, and this is probably the most common method of its transmission.
10. The period of incubation in experimental dengue average three days and fourteen hours.
11. Certain individuals are absolutely immune to dengue, as proven by our experiments.
12. Dengue is not a contagious disease, but is infectious in same manner as is yellow fever and the malarial fevers.
Other important remarks on this paper are how well they documented every case of experimentally induced dengue fever. There are even quantitative indications of the disease (well-marked leucopenia and marked increase in small lymphocytes).
Out of 11 volunteers, 7 injected with dengue-infected blood became ill with the disease, one was “doubtful”, and 3 appeared immune. Both volunteers given filtered blood became ill with the disease. The filtration method was shown to remove 2 species of bacteria.
So far, from this 116 year old paper, we have arguably begun to satisfy Massey’s requirement that we find papers that “scientifically prove/evidence the existence of the alleged Dengue virus (showing that the alleged particle exists and causes the disease that it’s alleged to cause)”.
While there are no particles to be found yet, there is SOMETHING in the blood of dengue patients that is evidenced to cause dengue in others, even when specific agents could not be found and were excluded by filtration.
This will be further supported by the next paper to be mentioned:
“Further Experiments in the Etiology of Dengue Fever”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2206837/