SUMMARY: Leprosy bacilli have not been cultivated with certainty in any cell-free medium, but the medium now described consistently supported considerable elongation of the organisms of murine leprosy (Mycobacterium lepraemurium), though without evidence of multiplication. The mean length of the bacilli doubled in about the generation time obtaining in host cells (7-14 days) and quadrupled before the bacilli became degenerate after about 2 months. The obligate acidity and other factors concerned in this growth were investigated, and are discussed in relation to the problem of the extracellular cultivation of leprosy bacilli.
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Hart et al. (1963) studied this question.