Show Medical Dean Explains Problems Confronting Leprosy Research By ELISABETH TRUELSON With the only leprosy research laboratory in the Western states at his disposal L. L. dean of the university medical is making great strides in uncovering causes and results ot the Rats are used in his experiments because the rat leprosy germ is similar to the human and it is hoped that if a way can be found to cure the disease in the same treatment can be applied to human The chief difficulty in all research on Dames is that although the germ which causes it can be seen through a it cannot be grown in laboratory culture I for purposes of Nor can it be discovered how the disease is Contrary to popular leprosy cannot be by touching an infected Much secondary evidence has been accumulated on methods of spreading the but until scientists learn to grow the organism experimentally nothing definite can be It is evidently a disease of unhygienic living Daines and most commonly appears first on exposed parts of the as on the hands or In rocky countries where natives go it first affects the For this it is thought that the germ of disease must enter the body through cuts and Dairies began his research in 1929 a disease of the skin of Utah cattle was brought to his Working with this disease in conjunction with a graduate Harold who is now a practicing physician in the germ was grown experimentally in the laboratory and found to be much like the organism producing human a leper colony only about a third of the people appear to be ill or The rest look and feel like healthy does not ho it does not attack the vital Lepers die of the same diseases that normal people |