Cultivation 401 



ably occurs only in places frequented by persons suffering 

 from the disease. That leprous infection occurs less readily 

 than tuberculous infection probably depends upon the fact 

 that lepra bacilli enter the body through cracks or fissures 

 in the skin, while the tubercle bacilli enter through the 

 more accessible respiratory and digestive apparatus. 



Many endeavors have been made to cultivate this bacillus 

 upon artificially prepared media, but in spite of modern 

 methods, improved apparatus, and refined media, few claim 

 to have met with success. Indeed, Hansen,* who discovered 

 the organism, declares that no one has cultivated it as yet. 



Bordoni-Uffredozzi t was able to cultivate a bacillus which 

 partook of the staining peculiarities of the lepra bacillus 

 as it appears in the tissues, but differed in morphology. 

 After numerous generations this bacillus was induced to 

 grow upon ordinary culture media. It commonly presented 

 a club-like appearance, which was thought by Baumgarten 

 to depend upon involution. Frankel found that the bacillus 

 of Bordoni-Uffredozzi possessed none of the essential charac- 

 teristics of the lepra bacillus except its staining. 



Czaplewski { confirmed the work of Bordoni-Uffredozzi, 

 and described a bacillus supposed to be the lepra bacillus, 

 which he succeeded in cultivating from the nasal secretions 

 of a leper. 



The bacillus was isolated upon a culture medium consist- 

 ing of glycerinized serum without the addition of salt, 

 peptone, or sugar. The mixture was poured 'into Petri 

 dishes, coagulated by heat, and sterilized by the inter- 

 mittent method. 



The secretion, being rich in lepra bacilli, was taken up with 

 a platinum wire and inoculated upon the culture medium 

 by a series of linear strokes. The dishes were then sealed 

 with paraffin and kept in the incubating oven at 37 C. 



Numerous colonies, chiefly of Staphylococcus pyogenes 

 aureus and the bacillus of Friedlander, developed and in 

 addition a number of strange colonies, composed of slender 

 bacilli about the size and form of the lepra bacillus. 



These colonies were grayish-yellow, humped in the middle, 

 1-2 mm. in diameter, irregularly rounded, and uneven at 



* Kolle and Wassermann's "Handbuch der pathogenen Mikroorgan- 

 ismen," n, p. 184, 1903. 



t "Zeitschrift f. Hygiene," etc., 1884, m. 



t "Centralbl. f. Bakt. und Parasitenk.," Jan. 31, 1898, vol. xxm, Nos. 

 3 and 4, p. 97 

 26 



