An attempt to culture Mycobacterium leprae in cell-free, semisynthetic, soft agar media.

This paper describes an attempt to culture M. leprae from leprous nodules, using cell-free, semisynthetic, soft agar media, and the effects of varying the incubation temperature and the composition of the basic medium, as well as of pretreating the bacterial suspensions with alkali. The identification test carried out in leprosy patients by intradermal injection of bacillary suspensions prepared from the primary cultures and third subcultures suggested that the bacterial masses that had formed in the suspensions were composed of M. leprae.