Le bacille de Hansen meurt en moins de trente minutes à la température de 60° et par dessiccation

Jusqu´à ce jour nous ne savons pas cultiver le bacille de Hansen en milieu artificiel. Nous ne connaissons pas non plus un animal sensible à l´infection par ce virus. Si nous ne pouvons pas pretendre que nos moyens d´action contre la lèpre déclarée souffrent de cette ignorance, nous pouvons affirmer qu´il n´en est pas de même de la prophylaxie. Aussi devons-nous nous feliciter de la mise au point d´un procede qui permette de décider de la vie et de la mort de ce germe

La lutte contre la lèpre dans les colonies françaises

The antileprosy campaign that has long been carried on in the French colonies, based on the internment cases, has not given the expected results. The conditions of the measures in force, and a widespread idea that the disease is hereditary, have resulted in an attitude strongly antagonistic to the system in spite of efforts to ameliorate the circumstances of those affected, and the disease has not only persisted but is continually spreading. To deal with the situation the Minister of Colonies has appointed a permanent commission, composed of Drs. Marchoux, Jeanselme, Gougerot and Burnet, which has considered a revision of measures for leprosy control for the colonies. The principles approved are, briefly, that the disease is a communicable one, the germ of which escapes from the tissues only when there are ulcers, in the absence of which even prolonged contact is not dangerous;ulcers of the mucosa present a greater difficulty than those of the skin, and ulcers may be precocious and inconstant. Diagnosis should, therefore, be made as early as possible; this requires a skilled specialist, but an educated populace will make diagnoses by themselves, so there is need of instruction of the public in regard to this, and also regarding the dangers of contagion and the value of early treatment. The first task is to enumerate the cases and to classify them - cutaneo-mucous, nervous and latent being the three types enumerated. Methods of providing treatment under different conditions, the desiderata as regards hospitalization, and the practicable methods of educational propaganda are enumerated.

Un cas d´inoculation accidentelle du bacille de Hansen en pays non lepreux

In December, 1922, the author removed for study a leprotic nodule from the arm of a patient of Professor Jeanselme, in Paris. The needle used in closing the wound was dull, and when forced through the skin it pricked an assistant. The wound was slight and superficial, on the external surface of the right middle finger. The puncture was pressed to force a few drops of blood from it, a little tincture of iodine was forced into it, and finally it was burned with a thermo-cautery. Nothing further was thought of the matter, especially in view of negative experiments in the literature, and of more serious accident which the author himself had had long before and which is described. Nevertheless, in March, 1932, the injured person, now a distinguished physician, reported that two years previously he had had a suppurative onyxitis with loss of the nails of the medial and index fingers; these when seen were vestigial. Six months previously (i.e., eighteen months after the onyxitis), he noticed that a cigarette burn was painless; this insensitivity to heat affected both fingers mentioned.