An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: December 10, 2024

GIBBS, Clarence Joseph, Jr.

2 entries
  • 13914

Attempts to demonstrate a transmissible agent in Kuru, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and other subacute and chronic progressive nervous system degenerations in man. Addendum p. 46 in: Slow, latent, and temperate virus infections. NINDB Monograph No. 2. Edited by D. Carleton Gajdusek, Clarence J. Gibbs, Jr., and Michael Alpers.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1965.

In their Addendum on p. 46 the authors stated that 20 and 21 months post innocculation in the brain with brain material from Kuru patients two chimpanzees showed symptoms of an illness suggestive of Kuru. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The authors formally reported these results the following year in Gajdusek, Gibbs, & Alpers, "Experimental transmission of a Kuru-like syndrome to chimpanzees," Nature, 209 (1966), 794-96.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Prion Diseases, NEUROLOGY › Degenerative Disorders
  • 4729.2

Transmission of two subacute spongiform encephalopathies of man (Kuru and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) to New World monkeys.

Nature, 230, 588-91, 1971.

Following Hadlow's suggestion (1959), Gadjusek was able to transmit Kuru and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease to primates through cerebral inoculations. Similarity in the clinical course of the diseases and in the cellular pathology of brain material suggested similar causative agents.

In 1976 Gajdusek shared the Nobel Prize with Baruch S. Blumberg "for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases."  See also 4729.1 and 13914.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Prion Diseases, NEUROLOGY › Degenerative Disorders, NOBEL PRIZES › Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine