Present trends and the future in rabies research.

Abstract

Until very recently, rabies research had made few notable advances since the time of Pasteur, but during the past few years the use of modern virological techniques has led to rapid progress in research on the rabies virus. This article summarizes the present state of knowledge of pathogenesis, immunology, cultivation in tissue culture, cell-virus relationships, and physicochemical properties of the virus.It is now possible, and opportune, to undertake the study of basic problems in the biology of rabies, which include the need for an improved method of post-exposure protection. Information gained from work on these problems should lead to important insights into other current problems of infectious processes such as "slow-virus" infections. The most promising directions of future research in rabies are enumerated and suggestions are made on the experimental techniques that might be used for such studies.