Abstract
IN the summer of 1964, cases of leptospirosis developed in man as a result of swimming in a farm creek. During epidemiological studies, six leopard frogs (Rana pipiens) were collected from these waters. Blood samples were obtained from the frogs. Two pools of kidneys (A and B) were made from three frogs each. Leptospires were not observed on dark-field microscopy of the kidney suspensions. These were diluted with Stuart's liquid media (1 : 10–1: 100,000) and 2–3 drops from the dilutions inoculated1 into semi-solid media: bovine-albumin ‘Tween 80’ (ref. 2) containing 5-fluorouracil3 (96 µg/ml.) (Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., Nutley, New Jersey) and Fletcher's semi-solid media1. The inoculated media were incubated at 28°–30° C for 90 days and examined periodically by dark-field microscopy. Leptospires were isolated from pool B in albumin ‘Tween 80’ medium on the twentieth day after inoculation. Observations of the frog isolate by electron microscopy indicated that the organisms were morphologically characteristic of the genus Leptospira4.
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DIESCH, S., MCCULLOCH, W., BRAUN, J. et al. Leptospires isolated from Frog Kidneys. Nature 209, 939–940 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/209939a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/209939a0
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