Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1910-09-01
SCIENCE WINNING
AGAINST LEPR0SY
Hope for It's Cure as Physicians
Obtain Pure Culture outside
Human Body.

Washington, Aug 3l.--Leprosy is maxi
Ing what is believed 70 be It's last stand
against science From Molokai. the coral
island prison for the plague stricken in
the Hawaiian group. a few words have
TO Washington telling OF an achev ent,
accounted second only to the discovery OF
the lepra bacillus by Hansen IN 1879.
Three physicians Of tho United States
public health and marine hospital serv-
ice. after months OF unremtting toll. have
grown lepra bacili in pure culture out
side the human body. and in tiny thin
glass tubes In the labratory the germs
arc now incubating in their third genera
ton.
Four times the scientists have taken the
infection from the body of a leper and ar
tif1cially propagated the bacillus on beef
broth. egg or the amoeba of the intes-
tines OF guinea pig. The work Of DR.,
Moses T. Clegg. who declared less than
a year ago at Manila that he had found
that the bacillus could be cultivated out
side the human body, IS verified and ex-
tended. DR. Clegg has been ordered from
the Manila scientific station to MookaI
to assist In the experiments.
FIRST STEP TOWARD SERUM
This achievement OF the scientists A,
the governments leprosy investiga ton
station Is the first step in the production
or vaccine or serum for the cure or
prevention OF leprosy. Precisely the same
ground has been covered by the men who
evolved the diphtheria anti-toxine and the
serum for tetanus. In each OF those cases
the growing of the germ In pure culture
mas eeen the stepping stone to the cure.
DR.. Donald II. Currie. director OF the sta
tion Or. Walter r. Brinkerhoff and DR.
h. +. Holman are the men who have
crown the cultures. After four months
careful work, in which they had labored
to grow the lepra bacillus in tho amoehn
or pond water, guinea pig intestines ard
other low forms Of animal life, they were
about to give up defeated.
Some of the tubes containing the speci-
mems were about to be destroyed when one
OF the men determined to make a last In
spection OF the cultures In forlorn hope.
no MS astonshment he found the germ
living The discovery spurred tho lnvesu-
gators to new effort.
HOPE FOR A IEPROsINE.
Clegg had found that by feeding
the bacillus OF cholera to the amoeha
tho lepra bacillus did better That
was supplemented by gelatine, beef
extract and eggs. and within three
weeks tho searchers were rewarded
again with the living germ,
Currie obtained pure culture,
which means he has eliminated the
amoeba and tho cholera bacillus and
now has the lepra bacillus propagat-
Ing OF itself, The others have been
grown through three generations,
Aside from the hopes OF evolving
n serum or n vaccine for prevention
or cure OF the scourge, scientists
hope tho investigators may fnd lep-
rosine, which, like tuberculine, would
detect the disease in Its first stages.
Or. Brinkerhoff, who made some OF
tho cultures at Molokai has Just left
the public health and marino hospita nj
service to become professor Of pathol-
ogy In the Harvard Medical school
Clegg. the original propagator OF the
hac1lluA- will take his place