The subjects of this study were 529 Hindus and 171 Muslims randomly selected from the leprosy patients who have visited the Leprosy Patients Walfare Society Old Mahapa-lika Building in the suburb of Agra City, U.P. State, India, durning 6 weeks from July to August in 1984 and 1985. They were directly interviewed concerning the place of their residence, disease and hygienic practices. This study is focused on the change of both Hindus and Muslims in their diet style before and after the onset of the disease.
Of the 426 Hindu males, 251 were vegetarians at the time of the interview, of whom 74 had converted to the vegetarianism after the onset of disaese. Number of the converted patients are appropriately 17.4 % of the male Hindus and 29.5 % of the Hindu vegeta-rians. In females, the corresponding values were 13.6 % and 21.2 % respectively.
Of the 137 male Muslims, only 5.8 % were originally vegetarians, and 10.2 % conver-ted to the vegetarianism after the onset which is estimately 63.6 % of the vegetarians. None of the 34 female Muslims were originally vegetarians, and 6 (17.6 %) converted to the vegetarianism after the onset of the disease.
In India, religion exerts a profound influence over all aspects and details in life of both Hindus and Muslims, and there are many religions regulations in their lives respec-tively. Difference in the influence of these two religious on their followers could be ob-served distinctly in the diet. Particularly in Hindus many patients with leprosy converted from a non-vegetarian to a vegetarian diet after the onset of the disease.

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Lepromin reactions of leprosy patients in the mainland and Okinawa of Japan were examined by using the standard (160 million bacilli/ml) and diluted lepromins, for the pur-pose of establishing practical use of the latter and understanding immunological character-istics of leprosy in Okinawa. The size of reactions expressed by mm scale were con-verted by common logarithms for statistical evaluation, because the distribution curves shown in Fig. 1-3 were approximately equal to a distorted shape of normal distribution. The results were as follow.
1. Both Fernandez' and Mitsuda's reactions to the lepromins diluted in 1:4 or more were significantly weaker than those to the standard, as demonstrated by the percentage of completely negative (0-1mm) reactions (Tables 1 and 2) and by the difference between two reactions in both forearms of the same patient (Tables 7 and 8).
2. Average size of reactions of the patients in Okinawa was significantly larger than those in the mainland, irrespective of dilution degree of the lepromins (Tables 4 and 5).
3. A correlation coefficient was significant between the Fernandez' and Mitsuda's reactions to each of the standard, 1:4 and 1:8 diluted lepromins (Table 9).
4. Normal human, autoclaved skin suspension caused the cutaneous response resembling Fernandez' reaction in a significant number of the patients, but the most of their responses disappeared completely after 4 weeks and a mean size of reactions in a few cases was significantly smaller than that of Mitsuda's reactions (Tables 3, 6 and 7).
5. Significant fall in the percentage of completely negative reactions and significant increase in the mean of 2mm or larger sizes of ractions were observed in the patients with lepromatous leprosy, according to three stages which were classified as progressive, retrogressive and quiescent in this order (Table 10).
6. A cut-off point of positive Fernandez' reactions was proposed to be 8mm, according to different criteria for positive reactions in lepromatous cases as well as in non-lepro-matous. On the other hand, Mitsuda's reactions should rather be recorded by the size of reaction which could be used as an indicator of cell-mediated immunity against Mycobacterium leprae.

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A total of 502 patients with leprosy admitted in the National Leprosaria, Okinawa Airaku-en and Miyako Nansei-en, were tested by the standard lepromin (160 million bacil-li/ml) and the sizes of Mitsuda's reactions read after 4 weeks were classified by 4 groups, i.e., 0-2mm, 3-5mm, 6-9mm, 10mm and larger. These groups were subdivided by per-sonal or family history or clinical findings of each patient. A relationship between each of these findings and Mitsuda's reactions was examined by χ2 test. High responders (10 mm and larger) were more frequently found in female than in male. Average age tended to rise with the increasing reactivity, but the highest average age was seen in non-lepro-matous patients with the lowest (0-2mm) response. This fact suggests a reduced lepro-min-reactivity in the aged patients.
High responders were less frequently found in the patients whose parents had inter-married. Among 31 pairs of consanguineous patients, 10 pairs showed a similarity of lepro-min-reactivity which was not concordant with the classification of leprosy, whereas the similar reactivity was found in only 2 out of 31 pairs of patients without blood-relation-ship, but with the same sex, age and classification of leprosy as the consanguineous pairs. The difference was statistically significant. However, the presence or absence of consan-guineous patient did not correlate with the lepromin-reactivity of index cases.
A living place and the place of onset showed no significant correlation with the Mitsuda's reaction. Thehigh responders were more frequently found in the patients with longer duration of disease than in those with the shorter, but this correlation was not sig-nificant in the patients with lepromatous leprosy. Low responders showed significant correlations with the initial symptoms such as cutaneous swelling and nodules, frequencies of skin lesion and ENL, positive bacteriological finding and the enlargement of peripheral nerve, while high responders showed significant correlations with the frequencies of claw hand, drop foot and complication of the other diseases. The Mitsuda's reaction in lepro-matous patients did not correlate with the symptoms such as the fall of eyebrow, ocular, nasal involvements and planter ulcer. Irregular and stopped treatments were more frequently found in the high responders. However, continued treatment of lepromatous cases showed no significant correlation with the lepromin-reactivity. These results suggest that the Mitsuda's reaction of leprosy patients in Okinawa are significantly influenced by both genetic and acquired factors, though the influence in some cases may be masked by an elevated level of lepromin-reactivity in the Okinawan patients as described in a previous report.

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ヘアレスマウスとヌードマウスの交雑第2代において皮膚に異常なしわを呈するマウスが得られた。このマウスは,ヘアレス遺伝子座とヌード遺伝子座をホモ接合体に持っ先天性Hairless-athymicマウスであることが判明した。このマウスは胸腺を欠如することと,Agingとともにその皮膚性状がヌードマウス様-ライノマウス様-ヘアレスマウス様と変貌していく外観に大きな特徴があり,その皮膚のHypotrichosis typeはCysticaであった。
先天性Hairless-athymicマウスの右後肢足へらい菌を接種し得られた早期の成績は,同腹ヌードマウスおよび対照ヌードマウスとほぼ同様な増殖像を示した。

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