Textbook of Clinical Leprosy

Clinical Leprosy, ever since its first publication in 1979, has continued to provide academic access to the understanding of this unique illness. Leprosy is responsible for presenting adequate material available for research, despite Mycobacterium leprae, its incriminating organism fails to fulfil Koch’s postulates, the major impediment being its denial to grow in vitro. Accordingly, the diagnosis of leprosy continues to haunt and is based primarily on cardinal clinical undertone supplemented by the demonstration of acid-fast-bacilli on slit-skin-smear. Although the latter is a reliable tool, it only provides circumstantial evidence because it has been repeatedly demonstrated from the lesions of cardinal morphology. Nevertheless, one of the major gaps is the inability to recover the organism on artificial culture. Microscopic pathology seems to surmount this diagnositic dilemma, but only supplements it. It is worthwhile taking note of all the parameters to facilitate its diagnosis and subsequent treatment that curtails transmission of the disease. Therefore, concise facets have been included in this text in order to present an understanding of leprosy.