Abstract
Cultures were made of the blood of 462 patients suffering with advanced leprosy in its various manifestations. Only one sample of 10 cc. was taken from each patient and a separate sterile syringe was used in each instance. The skin over the arm vein was thoroughly scrubbed with alcohol and tincture of iodine was applied and allowed to dry 2 min. before the insertion of the needle. The contents of the syringe were transferred directly into the culture or centrifuge tubes.
Two hundred specimens were cultured by the technique of Löwenstein. 1 The blood was centrifugated at once, the serum withdrawn with Pasteur bulb pipettes, the red corpuscles dissolved by the addition of sterile distilled water until the hemoglobin was entirely removed. The precipitate was then transferred to the surface of Löwenstein's medium which had been distributed and sterilized in Blake bottles of 250 cc. capacity. After inoculation, the bottles were sealed with wax and placed in the incubator at 37° for 6–8 weeks. At the end of this interval the flasks were removed from the incubator and the surface of the medium carefully examined macroscopically for the presence of colonies and later microscopic studies were made of stained smears of the water of condensation. No growth was noted.
Two hundred samples of blood were transferred directly into 30×250 mm. tubes, each containing 50 cc. of cooked meat beef heart broth prepared by the addition of heart infusion broth to pieces of cardiac muscle saved from the infusion. The tubes were placed in the incubator and at weekly intervals for a period of 8 weeks a loopful of the broth suspension was streaked over the surface of NNN medium in test tubes. No growth appeared on this medium after incubation.
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