Oropharyngeal leprosy in art, history, and medicine.

Advanced lesions of the face, nasopharynx, and oropharynx have played an important role in the medical and social history of Hansen's disease. Renaissance artists included detailed portrayals of these lesions in some of their paintings, a testimony not only to their artistic skill and powers of observation but also to the common presence of these patients in European cities and towns of the period. The disease is now understood as a broad immunologic spectrum of host responses to Mycobacterium leprae, with a variety of clinical and pathologic manifestations in nerve, soft tissues, and bone.

On the beta-glucuronidase binding protein (BGBP) of microorganisms. Its purification, the antiserum preparation against that and its localization in leproma and the other infectious lesions shown by immunohistologic method.

Our previous studies suggested that M. leprae (ML) grow in peripheral nerves and lepra cells because ML metabolize hyaluronic acid (HA), and use its component for their growth by the aid of host enzyme combined to the bacilli derived beta-glucuronidase binding protein (BGBP). In this study, therefore, we examined the method to purify BGBP from a mycobacterium HI-75 originally separated from a leproma and cultured by modified Ogawa's medium containing split products of HA (glucuronic acid and N-acetylglucosamine).

Light- and electron-microscopic study of M. leprae-infected armadillo nerves.

Lesions in peripheral nerves of armadillos experimentally infected with Mycobacterium leprae were studied by light- and electron-microscopy. Bacilli could be found clearly inside axons of unmyelinated nerve fibers. Heavily bacillated Schwann cells were seen embracing unmyelinated axons with interrupted cytoplasmic membranes.

Liberated intracellular pathogen--leprosy model.

Thirty-three mycobacterial strains, 30 by culture and 3 directly from tissues, isolated from lepromatous leprosy and leprosy infected armadillos, were compared by numerial taxonomy and by antibodies from lepromatous patients. An additional 17 strains of the M-A-I-S complex were similarly compared and all strains were compared by rabbit antibodies induced by tissue bacilli from armadillos from culture HZ-15 and by members of the M-A-I-S complex. The results are discussed in terms of the identification of M.

In vitro cultivation of leprosy bacilli in hyaluronic acid-based medium. 2. Progress and developing concept of the role of hyaluronic acid suggested by culture and armadillo infection studies.

Progress is summarized relating to the verification, identification of M. leprae and understanding of the process of adaptation the pathogen passes through before in vitro growth takes place. It is recognized that hyaluronic acid apparently does not serve as a source of energy but the possibility is presented that it plays a role in the reconstruction of M.

Histochemistry of B663 pigmentation: ceroid-like pigmentation in macrophages.

Histochemical studies were made of pigmented cutaneous lesions from three cases of lepromatous leprosy treated with B663 to determine the nature and histogenesis of the brown pigmentation which develops as a side effect of the drug. One case of DDS-treated leprosy and four cases of untreated leprosy were also investigated histochemically as controls. The brown pigmentation of the skin is due to deposition of a ceroid-like substance in the macrophages, which is a yellowish-brown, acid-fast lipid pigment.

Cytochrome-linked respiration in host grown M. leprae isolated from an Armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus, L.).

The bacilli were isolated from an armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus, L.) and cytochrome systems as well as oxidation of succinate and NADH by M. leprae were studied.