"The Leprosy Question."

Abstract

To the Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association: In your issue of May 14, Dr. D. C. Newman, referring to my paper on Leprosy Question, states that had I followed up Dr. Arning's researches I would have learned that Dr. Arning made many cultures of the germ as early as 1884. So this is anything but a new discovery. The reference to be drawn from this statement is that it is a well-known fact, and has been since 1884, that the germ of leprosy is susceptible to cultivation. That Dr. Arning has attempted to cultivate the bacillus leprae I am well aware, and I am also cognizant of the fact that others have claimed to have done so. But these claims have not been accepted by the scientific world as final, for their cultures have not been proven to bepure cultures. If I am ignorant