HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Walker, E. L. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Walker, E. L.

Contributions to the Bacteriology of Leprosy

II. The Chromogenic Acid-Fast Bacillus of Clegg¹

The cultivation of a chromogenic acid-fast bacillus from leprous lesions on Musgrave and Clegg's medium is confirmed.

Neither the symbiotic amoebae of Clegg nor the protein split products of Duval are necessary for the growth of this organism.

The essential factor for the development of Clegg's bacillus appears to be the lean medium containing only traces of nutrient substances.

Clegg's acid-fast bacillus develops in transplants from colonies of Bordoni-Uffreduzzi's partially acid-fast diphtheroid on Musgrave and Clegg's medium.

A chromogenic acid-fast bacillus, similar to Clegg's bacillus, develops in transplants from colonies of the pleomorphic diphtheroid from smegma praeputii on Musgrave and Clegg's medium.

A non-chromogenic acid-fast bacillus, having also morphological differences from Clegg's bacillus, develops in cultures from non-leprous nasal secretions and from Hoffmann's diphtheroid isolated from such secretions, on Musgrave and Clegg's medium.

Clegg's bacillus appears to be a developmental stage of Bordoni-Uffreduzzi's diphtheroid, but the possibility that it may be a contamination can not as yet be absolutely excluded.

Both Clegg and Bordoni-Uffreduzzi and their successors may have cultivated different forms of one and the same pleomorphic bacterium from leprosy.

This organism appears to be identical with or closely related to the pleomorphic and facultative acid-fast so-called Bacillus smegmatis.

¹ Read at the nineteenth annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine, San Francisco, Cal., June 25 and 26, 1923.

Preliminary report. Owing to the transfer of the leper patients from the San Francisco Isolation Hospital to the National Leprosarium at Carville, Louisiana, this investigation has of necessity been discontinued for the present.