The first decade in experimental leprosy

摘要

Considerable developments have occurred in the application of the method for growing Mycobacterium leprae in the mouse foot-pad since it was first described about 10 years ago. The method has been used to study growth curves and histology in normal and in thymectomized irradiated mice, to identify supposed isolates of Myco. leprae that have been made in tissue-culture or in non-living media, to evaluate tests of experimental vaccines, to investigate applications to clinical investigations (the loss of infectivity during chemotherapy as a means of monitoring a drug trial, the demonstration of drug-resistance, and the clinical problem of the patient who responds poorly to therapy), and to study new drugs—e.g., dapsone, acedapsone, clofazimine, and rifampicin.