Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus and Other Arenaviruses Symposium held at the Heinrich-Pette-Institut fUr experimentelle Virologie und Immunologie, Universitat Hamburg October 16-18, 1972 Scientific Organizers of the Symposium J. Hotchin, F. Lehmann-Grube, and C. A. Mims Edited by F. Lehmann-Grube With 110 Figures Springer-Verlag Berlin' Heidelberg . New York 1973 Previous symposia of the Heinrich-Pette-Institut fOr experimentelle Virologie und Immunologie an der Universitat Hamburg: 1. Demyelinisierende Encephalomyelitis. Held at the Universitats-Krankenhaus Eppendorf, Hamburg, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, August 2 to 4, 1962. Published in 1964 by Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart. Herausgeber: Edith Pette und H. Bauer. 2. Pathogenesis and Etiology of Demyelinating Diseases. Held at the Hotel La Palma, Locarno, Schweiz, May 31 to June 3,1967. Published in 1969 by S. Karger, Basel and New York. Ed.: Krystina Burdzy and P. Kallos. ISBN-13: 978-3-540-06403-9 001: 10.1007/978-3-642-65681-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-642-65681-1 This work is subjectto copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part oflhe material is concerned, specifically those oftranslation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machine or similar means, and storage in data Foreword Four decades ago, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus was discovered, at about the same time and independently, in 3 different localities in the U.S.A. Armstrong and Lillie encountered the agent in a monkey when they passaged a recent isolate of the St. Louis encephalitis virus; Rivers and Scott isolated 5 strains from patients with meningitis; and Traub revealed the virus in a colony of albino mice. Already in these first isolations mice were incriminated, and later observa- tions proved beyond doubt that M. musculus is the principal reservoir of the virus in nature. For some time LCM virus was regarded as the sole etiologic agent of Wallgren's "meningite aseptique aigue". Soon, however, it became clear that Wallgren's syndrome had a multitude of causes, among which the LCM virus was of little VI the study of the properties of many arenaviruses including those of LCM virus. The initiative in 1969 not only created a new group of viruses. It also led to the foundation of a "club" of investigators with common interests who for more than 2 years had the peculiar attribute to have never actually met. When my colleagues and I at the Heinrich-Pette-Institut decided to act as hosts for the first meeting, we were, fortunately, unaware of the organizational difficulties which lay ahead. If those who have contributed towards overcoming these difficulties were all to be named, the list would be prohibitively long. However, even with the help of so many we would have failed without our secretary, Miss Evelyne Danckers. She was the heart and soul of our efforts before, during and after the meeting, and she geserves the sincere gratitude of all of us. . Together