The question of the presence of influenza virus in the faeces of mice after infection and feeding with the virus

Summary

Repeated attempts to duplicateSarracino andSoule's experiments to identify influenza virus in the faeces of infected mice proved to be a failure. Other, more sensitive methods for extracting minute amounts of influenza virus from contaminated material are described, but they also proved incapable of extracting influenza virus from the faeces of infected mice. Attempts to infect animals by the intestinal route produced no result and at the same time we failed to prove that the influenza virus can pass the alimentary canal without being destroyed.