From January to September 1955, experiments were carried out to examine the possibility of preventing leprosy by means of BCG injection and murine leprosy was employed for a mean of this purpose.
The experiments were carried out in 3 series, namely, 1) prophylaxis, 2) inhibition of the onset and 3) therapy. And 140 rats were used in total.
I. Experiment of Prophylaxis
Experimental method :
Experimental animal : Young female rats, 70g±10g in weight
BCG : Prepared at the National Institute of Health
Strain of Murine Leprosy Bacillus : The leproma of the Kumamoto strain passed through rats was extirpated and suspended in saline water. The concentrations used were 10^-2 and 10^-4.
80 rats were devided into four groups of each 20 rats. BCG was injected, then after 3 months 0.5cc of each murine leprosy bacillus suspension was, as an challenging manner. in- oculated subcutaneously.
The size and the weight of the leproma were the standards of the judgement. Distribution of bacillus and pathological changes in the lymph nodes and visceral organs were helpful to the judgement.
Results : As presented in Tables 1 and 2, Figures 1 and 2 and Plate, the onset was inhibited most strongly in the group received 10mg BCG intraperitoneally. The group which had received subcutaneous inoculation of 10^-4 suspension showed pretty strong inhibition, while the inoculation of 10^-2 suspension presented no difference from the control group.
From the above results, it was revealed that the preceding BCG injection prevented the onset of murine leprosy, and BCG was more effective when injected intraperitoneally than subcutaneously. And that the diluted suspension was more adequate than the concentrated.
II. Inhibition of the onset
Experimental method : Rat, BCG and murine bacillus suspension employed in this experiment were the same as those in experiment of prophylaxis. This time, 20 rats inoculated 0.5cc of 10^-2 suspension and other 20 0.5cc of 10^-4 suspension. The half number of each group received subcutaneous injection of 10mg of BCG on the next day and observed. The standards of the judgement were the same as those described in the previous experiment.
Results : As in Tables 3 and 4, and figures 3 and 4, 10 rats inoculated 10^-2 bacillary suspension presented no remarkable difference between the treated and the non-treated groups, while those in inoculated 10^-4 suspension BCG injection produced a more intense inhibition. These results revealed that BCG injection inhibited the onset of murine leprosy to some extent.
III. Therapeutic Experiment
20 rats which had already developed, 3 months after subcutaneous inoculation of murine leprosy bacillus, pea-sized or almond-sized leprom at the site were injected subcutaneously. 10 of the above 20 rats then received 10mg of BCG 10 times in every week. In this treatment, BCG injection produced no noticeable difference between the treated and non-treated groups (Tab. 5). In short, BCG showed no therapeutic effect.
These three series of experiments presented conclusion that BCG injection is a useful method for the prophylaxis and the inhibition of the onset of murine leprosy.

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No report is published of the studies on the components of the murine leprosy bacillus, on account of impossibility in cultivation and accordingly in acquisition of the bacillus in large quantity. This paper reports the results of bacillus collection, as a preceding step of studies on the chemical components of the bacillus.
After the freezing dissolution of suspension of leproma, chloroform and toluol fraction is applied. By this method the number of bacilli per nitrogen 1 mg in the intermediate zone reached about 100 times of that in the starting material. However, the bacilli collected by this method has already lost the infectious ability.
While the bacillus number obtained by the Hanks' method after mitochondria separation is a tenth of that by the preceding method. But this is a favorable method to maintain the infectious ability and will be critinized hereafter.

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The results of analysis for the fundamental chemical components of the murine leprosy bacillus obtained from the infected subcutaneous tissue by chloroform fraction method described in the preceding paper are as following :
The collecting effect of the bacillus is 5.24% and water is 82%, total nitrogen 5.7%, carbohydrate is 3.15%, total phosphorous is 0.65-0.72% and alcohol-ether soluble substances 34.5%. Compared with other cultivable acid-fast bacilli, total nitrogen is somewhat small and total phosphorous large in quantity and in other points there is no remarkable difference. However, these values should be corrected more or less, because the above method uses chloroform a strong extractive, by the future results of analysis employing some other method of collecting bacilli.

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The early (1 hour) and terminal (24 hours) reactions of intracutaneously injected hyaluronidase in the healthy people were observed, having the local reactional area and intensity as the objects of measurement. The results obtained are as follows :
1) The condition of spreading presents a moderate individual variation, especially, with those whose tuberculin reaction is changing into positive the variance is remarkable.
2) The spreading of hyaluronidase is weak in the male. and strong in the female. But inn the later case before and and after menstration, the spreading is strong and in other period, weak. As for the relation with ages, it is strong in the juvenile period, and decreasing after years in the puberty and youth and shows no change thenceforth.
3) The spreading of hyaluronidase is variable by the seasons. Generally, it is the lowest in the autumn, increasing from the winter to spring and again decreasing from summer to autumn.

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The conditions of mortality of 572 patients, from 1941 to 1954, divided in three periods, during the War (1942-1945), after the War (1946-1950) and in the improving period of social conditions (l95-1954) and the present conditions of 658 in-patients (on Dec. 1954) were investigated.
1) The frequency of infection was high in puberty in the female and after puberty in the male. The ratio of the male to the female was 2.09:1.
2) The period from the outset of the disease to the death was 630 years in most patients (79.8). Death was most frequent at ages between 30 and 50 years old.
3) The average life was shortened temporarily during the War and prolonged at present (51 years old in the male and 55 years old in the female), which is in accordance with the average life of the Japanese in 1948, but still shorter by 10 years than the general Japanese people.
4) The decrease of mortality is striking in the turns of during the War, after the War and in the recent times.
5) Pulmonary tuberculosis is a remarkable cause of death in most patients, but the frequency is decreasing by years, while chronic nephritis has a tendency to increase.

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