Moles, Mice & Leprosy

In the thoroughly modern laboratory of the Japanese government's hospital at Keijo (Seoul) in Chosen (Korea), Professor Kiyoshi Shiga, the hospital director and an eminent bacteriologist*, some months ago implanted leprosy bacilli in some mice. Since 1871 when Dr. G. Armauer Hansen of Norway discovered the Bacillus leprae men have been trying to grow it artificially. If the germs could be cultivated, perhaps an antileprosy serum would evolve. Some ten years ago a Russian biologist, Kadroski, announced such an artificial culture. Just before his death Dr. Moses Clegg of the Philippine Bureau of Science at Manila, announced a culture. Last year Dr. Ernest L. Walker of the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research, San Francisco, announced another culture. Their methods of growing the leprosy bacilli, however, were not satisfactory. Professor Shiga was seeking a better method. But his infected mice did not develop leprosy. Then he tried moles. They caught the disease.

Next thought was: why did the moles and not the mice develop leprosy? Was it because the moles lived underground, ate earthworms, lacked normal vitamins? He raised some mice on diets lacking certain vitamins and infected them with leprosy. Like the moles, but unlike the normal mice they broke out with the nauseating stigmata of leprosy. Here then was excellent proof that he had a virulent strain of the germ, which under special conditions might be prepared as a vaccine.

Last week Professor Shiga decided his preliminary success warranted a vacation. He sailed from the Asiatic mainland for Japan, stopped over at Tokyo. Before he left for a quiet hill estate back of the city, he made a statement:

"Although my experiments are not completed, I have no doubt that within the near future, as we are able to experiment with other animals, we shall be able to develop means of protection against leprosy by vaccination, as well as to discover suitable means of treatment."

Packed in his promise was a brilliant thought that the susceptibility to leprosy may hinge on a vitamin-deficient diet, that people well fed with a balanced diet have little to fear.

*He has been professor of bacteriology at Keio University, Tokyo, and associate at the Kitasato Institute for Infectious Diseases, Tokyo.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.