STUDIES ON NEWCASTLE DISEASE VIRUS : I. AN EVALUATION OF THE METHOD OF TITRATION

The application of the 50 per cent embryo mortality to a study of the virus of Newcastle is described. It has been evaluated by a series of duplicate titrations of the same sample of virus. In seven such titrations the largest difference between the two was 10(–0.4). It is therefore believed that a difference of 0.6 log is probably significant and of 1.0 log almost certainly significant. This would mean that we can almost certainly detect a loss of 90 per cent of activity. Neither temperature of incubation nor route of inoculation in the test embryos had consistent effect on the measurement of virus activity. The effect of increasing age of the incubated embryo, from 10 days up to 16 days, is slight and inconsistent. The addition of chicken red blood cells to a dilution of virus may lower the titer of the preparation, but the change is not sufficient to be of importance in the routine handling of the virus.