B. Have not been grown on non-living culture media.
1. Occurs in man. Has not been transmitted experimentally to any other species of animal.
13. Mycobacterium leprae.
2. Occurs in wild rats and mice. Experimentally transmissible to rats, mice and hamsters.
14. Mycobacterium lepraemurium.
1. Mycobacterium phlei Lehmann and Neumann, 1899, pro parte. (Timotheebacillus or Grasbacillus I, Moeller, Therapeutischen Monatsch., 12, 1898, 607; Moeller, Deutsch. med. Wochnschr., 24, 1898, 376; Lehmann and Neumann, Bakt. Diag., 2 Aufl., 2, 1899, 411.)
phle'i. Gr. noun phleus a flowering reed; M.L. neut.n. Phleum a grass genus, timothy; M.L. gen. noun phlei of timothy.
Description taken from Gordon and Smith (Jour. Bad., 66, 1953,43).
Rods, 1.0 to 2.0 microns in length after cultivation for 48 hours on glycerol agar at 37° C., coccoid forms to short rods; those of a few cultures longer, averaging 2.5 to 3.0 microns. Non-motile. Some with irregularly and some with uniformly staining protoplasm. Filaments and branching rarely, if ever, seen. Acid-fastness after incubation for 5 days at 28° C. from 5 to 100 per cent.
Gelatin: Variable, limited hydrolysis by Frazier method.
Bennett's and soil extract agar colonies: Dense with smooth edges, dense with fringe of filaments, or filamentous. Filaments fragmenting into short rods.
Glycerol agar slants: Growth at 2 to 4 days usually rough, thin, dry, spreading, pale yellow; at 10 to 14 days, thick, waxy, coarsely wrinkled, deep yellow to orange. Growth of a few cultures smooth, soft, spreading, butyrous, deep yellow to orange.
Milk agar plate: No hydrolysis of casein.
Indole not produced (Penso, Ortali, Gaudiano, Princivalle, Vella and Zampieri, Rend. dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 14, 1951, 855).
Acid from glucose, mannitol and sorbitol (with ammoniacal nitrogen); usually from mannose and arabinose. Variable reaction on xylose, trehalose, maltose and galactose. No acid from rhamnose, inositol, dulcitol, lactose or raffinose.
Starch is hydrolyzed.
Citrate, succinate and malate usually used as sole sources of carbon.
Tyrosine not decomposed (Gordon and Smith, Jour. Bact., 69, 1955, 503).
Benzoate not utilized (Gordon and Smith, loc. cit.).
Nitrites produced from nitrates.
Temperature relations: Growth at 28° to 52° C. inclusive; variable at 55° and 15° C.; negative at 10° C. Survives 60° C. for 4 hours.
Optimum pH, 6.0; range, 5.5 to 8.8 (Penso et al., op. cit., 1951, 855).
Salt tolerance: Scant, if any, growth in glycerol broth containing 5 per cent NaCl.
Pathogenicity: Not pathogenic for mouse, rat, guinea pig, rabbit, chicken, frog or carp (Penso et al., loc. cit.).
Source: Originally isolated from hay and grass.
Habitat: Widely distributed in soil, dust and on plants.
2. Mycobacterium smegmatis (Trevisan, 1889) Lehmann and Neumann, 1899. (Smegma bacillus, Alvarez and Tavel, Arch. phys. norm, et path., 21, (sér. 3, 6), 1885, 303; Bacillus smegmatis Trevisan, I generi e le specie delle Batteriacee, 1889, 14; Lehmann and Neumann, Bakt. Diag., 2 Aufl., 2, 1899, 403; Mycobacterium lacticola' Lehmann and Neumann, ibid., 408.)
smeg'ma.tis. Gr. neut.n. smegma an ungent or ointment, a detergent, in Modern Latin sebaceous humor; M.L. gen.n. smegmatis of smegma.
Description taken from Gordon and Smith (Jour. Bact., 66, 1953, 45).
Rods, 3.0 to 5.0 microns in length after 48-hours cultivation on glycerol agar at 37° C., slender, of varying lengths, often filamentous, sometimes branched, curved and beaded, occasionally swollen with ovoid, deeper staining bodies. Acid-fastness
