From lyrics composed by Dr. Helen Davies and her microbiology students at the University of Pennsylvania.

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LEPROSY (To the tune of "Yesterday," by the Beatles)

Leprosy,
Bits and pieces falling off of me.
But it isn't the toxicity;
It's just neglect of injury.

Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be.
Can't feel anything peripherally
From swollen nerves, hypersensitivity.

Why don't leprae grow in vitro?
We cannot say.
In vivo they grow very slow,
Once in 12 da ... ay ... ay ... ays.

Hard to get,
But the stigma hasn't faded yet.
Don't keep an armadillo* as a pet.
Clofazamine and Dapsone--don't forget.

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*Bit of esoterica, perhaps: one out of six armadillos found in the Texas and Louisiana coastal marshes harbor leprosy. Some cases of leprosy in humans could possibly result from zoonotic transmission from armadillos. Although the incidence of this is believed to be low, before keeping an armadillo as a pet, one should be congnizant of the possiblility.

I first head this on an interview with Prof. Helen Davies on NPR a couple of years ago. Very funny lady in a grim sort of way. I might mention that, although she is quite happy if people want to sing these microbiological parodies, I believe she said the material is copyrighted.

Here's another example of the work fo Prof. Davies and her students:

HERPES SIMPLEX 1 AND 2 (To "The Sound of Silence," by Simon and Garfunkel)

Hello, herpes, our old friend,
Will be with us 'til the end.
'Cause the virus softly creeping
Left its genes while we were sleeping.
Not integrated into our genome,
It will roam, that episome.
The DNA of herpes.
Herpes simplex 1 and 2
Will forever be with you.

On our gums, lips, eyes, or down there, too,
And there isn't much that we can do,
But there is acyclovir to help,
And we'll want help
From herpes hurting you.
"Fools," say I, "you must beware!"
Herpes simplex's everywhere.
Symptomatic or in the ganglia,
Caught in New York or in East Anglia.
It will be latent
And reoccur when times are bad,
And you'll be had
When herpes comes for you.

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Stay healthy.

Don Firth