Armstrong – Table of Contents

in mice and men. The French scientific community honored Armstrong
by naming the clinical entity “La Maladie d’Armstrong”.
9) In 1936, he demonstrated that various astringent chemicals instilled into
the nostrils of monkeys would produce a marked temporary protection
against poliomyelitis virus instilled by the same route – thus affording a
useful means of blocking the nasal route of infection in experimental
studies. This modality was unsuccessful in influencing the course of a
concurrent ongoing community poliomyelitis epidemic.
10) In 1939, for the first time, he was able to adapt and transmit a human
strain of poliomyelitis (the Lansing type 2 strain) virus from monkeys
to small rodents, first to the cotton rat and then to white mice. This
accomplishment was revolutionary in facilitating the study of many
aspects of infection and immunity in humans that could scarcely have
been carried out with monkeys, the only susceptible experimental
animal known up to that time. The discovery also stimulated the
renewal of efforts to adapt and establish the other immunologic types of
poliomyelitis, leading to methods that resulted in the eventual
developments of successful vaccines for poliomyelitis.
11) In 1946, he assisted Robert J. Huebner and others in discovering and
elucidating the nature of a newly recognized disease named
“Rickettsialpox”. The complete elucidation of this disease in record
time (seven months) has been recognized as a modern classic of
investigative microbiology.