740 



Leprosy 



tures, giving it a beaded appearance, like the tubercle bacillus. It 

 occurs singly or in irregular groups. There is no characteristic 

 grouping and filaments are unknown. It is not motile and has no 

 flagella and no spores. 



Staining. — ^It stains in very much the same way as the tubercle 

 bacillus, but permits of a more ready penetration of the stain, so 

 that the ordinary aqueous solutions of the anilin dyes color it quite 

 readily. The property of retaining the color in the presence of 

 the mineral acids also characterizes the lepra bacillus, and the 

 methods of Ehrlich, Gabbet, and Unna for staining the tubercle 

 bacillus can be used for its detection. It stains well by Gram's 

 method and by Weigert's modification of it, by which beautiful 

 tissue specimens can be prepared. 



Fig. 289. — ^Lepra bacilli. 



Smear from a lepra node stained with carbol-fuchsin 

 (Kolle and Wassermann). 



Cultivation. — ^Many endeavors have been made to cultivate 

 this bacillus upon artificially prepared media, but in 1903 Hansen,* 

 who discovered the organism, declared that no one had yet culti- 

 vated it. 



Bordoni-Uffreduzzif was able to cultivate a bacillus which par- 

 took of the staining peculiarities of the lepra bacillus as it appears 

 in the tissues, but differed in morphology. 



CzaplewskiJ confirmed the work of Bordoni-Uffreduzzi, and 

 described a bacillus supposed to be the lepra bacillus, which he 

 succeeded in cultivating from the nasal secretions of a leper. 



The baciUus was isolated upoii a culture-medium consisting 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 intermittent method. 



* Kolle and Wassermann's "Handbuch der pathogenen Mikroorganismen," 

 II, p. 184, 1903. 



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



t"Centralbl. f. Bakt. und Parasitenk.," Jan. 31, 1898, vol. xxiii, Nos. 3 and 

 4, P- 97- 



