Jamison D G
Postgrad Med J. 1969 Jun;45(524):408-14. doi: 10.1136/pgmj.45.524.408.
Leprosy is being regarded more and more as a general medical condition. The available data about its manifestations and treatment are becoming more widely known. The problems of infectivity, animal inoculation and cultivation remain to a large extent unsolved. The recent successful inoculation of irradiated mice with fresh organisms is a major advance. It may well prove a means of testing new drugs and of confirming claims of successful cultivation, and more important still, of determining the viability of organisms obtained from both active and treated cases of leprosy. Finally, it is in the field of delayed hypersensitivity (CMI) and autoimmune processes initiated by the mycobacterial infections that this slowly progressive, greatly variable and widely disseminated infection may become a most rewarding subject for study by the immunologist of the future.
麻风越来越被视为一种普通的医学病症。关于其临床表现和治疗的现有数据正被越来越广泛地知晓。传染性、动物接种和培养等问题在很大程度上仍未得到解决。最近成功地用新鲜病原体对接种过辐射的小鼠进行接种是一项重大进展。这很可能证明是一种测试新药、证实成功培养说法的手段，更重要的是，能确定从麻风病活动期和经治疗病例中获得的病原体的活力。最后，正是在迟发型超敏反应（细胞介导免疫）以及由分枝杆菌感染引发的自身免疫过程领域，这种进展缓慢、变化极大且广泛传播的感染可能会成为未来免疫学家研究的一个极有价值的课题。
