1977 Volume 52 Issue 9 Pages 411-415
Mice were infected intravenously with a streptomycin-dependent strain of tubercle bacilli which had been brought into the antibiotic-starved condition by growing them on streptomycin-free Sauton medium. Chemotherapy with isoniazid, isoniazid plus pyradinamide, or ethambutol exerted little influence on the persisting or declining fate of these infecting bacilli, but rifampicin reduced markedly their viable counts in the spleen and lung down to the undetectable level. From this result in the highly artificial model, a suggestion was made that rifampicin, unlike isoniazid and ethambutol, might be effective even against the resting or persisting bacilli in tuberculous lesions.
