Florante C. Bocobo

Epidemiologic study of Tinea capitis caused by T. tonsurans and M. audouinii.

T THE ringworm clinic of the Wayne County Health Center, Eloise, Mich., during the last 6 months of 1959, the causative agent in 23 of 74 cases of tinea capitis in children was proved by culture to be Trichophyton tonswrans. This relatively high incidence of T. tonsu,rans infection in an area not previously known to be endemic for this fungus was emphasized in an earlier report (1). More infected children were subsequently seen at the clinic, and a majority of these patients were students from three schools in a particular area of Inkster, Mich. In an effort to determine the extent of this outbreak, casefinding surveys for tinea capitis were undertaken from June 1959 to March 1963 among 15 of Inksters 22 schools, families of infected children, and patients referred to the ringworm clinic from areas outside Inkster.

Modern treatment of the systemic fungus diseases.

For many years the systemic fungus diseases received little attention from the members of the medical profession and in the curriculum of the medical schools in the United States. Recently there has been a gradual awakening to their importance. The introduction of increasing numbers of antifungal chemotherapeutic agents attest this new interest in the mycotic diseases. Beneficial or curative specific therapy is now possible for many of these diseases which previously were without effective means of treatment.

A STUDY OF NORTH AMERICAN BLASTOMYCOSIS AND ITS TREATMENT WITH STILBAMIDINE AND 2-HYDROXYSTILBAMIDINE

Excerpt Stilbamidine and 2-hydroxystilbamidine are now widely accepted as the treatment of choice for the systemic fungus disease, North American blastomycosis. Schwarz and Goldman1recently reporte...

North American blastomycosis

Abstract North American blastomycosis (Gilchrists disease) in a granulomatous, infectious disease caused by the fungus, Blastomyces dermatitidis (Gilchrist and Stokes, 1898). The malady, in its cutaneous form, was first described by Gilchrist 1 in 1894. A few years later, together with Stokes, he was able to isolate and culture that causative organisms which he designated as B. dermatitibis . 23 The first description of the disease in its systemic form was made by Walker and Montgomery 4 in 1902. The first reports by Gilchrist were followed by an era of confusion during which the disease was confounded with other entities, particularly cryptococcosis and candidiasis, all caused by morphologically similar budding organisms. Nineteen new names were suggested for the causative fungus. During the last two decades, however, a clearer picture of the disease process has emerged, particularly as a result of studies by the Duke Medical School group, headed by Smith, Martin, and Conant. Numerous clinical and laboratory reports have contributed significantly to a fuller understanding of the disease, but there are still some fundamental question to be answered. Excellent review articles on North American blastomycosis are available.

Accidental Isolation of Trichophyton Mentagrophytes from the Floor of a Schoolhouse

A proven case of cryptococcosis was seen in the Department of Dermatology, University of Michigan Hospital, and attempts were made to trace the possible source of infection. At the onset of his illness, the patient was working as a janitor in the Foster School of Ypsilanti, Michigan. This is a rambling, one-story schoolhouse built during the Second World War. In view of the recent reports of the isolation of Cryptococcus neoformans in nature (1, 4, 5), samples of soil and floor dust from the schoolhouse were obtained: Sample 1 and Sample 2 were soils from under drains, Sample 3 was from the sweepings gathered in the bag of a vacuum cleaner used to clean the floors, and Sample 4 was from dirt accumulated on a motor-driven rotary floor brush. Each sample was suspended in physiological saline solution in a 100 ml graduate with vigorous agitation and left to settle at room temperature. After 3 hours, portions of the top layers of the suspensions were inoculated on duplicate Sabourauds-dextrose-agar slants, both with and without penicillin and streptomycin. One set of the cultures was left at room temperature and the duplicate set, at incubator temperature. These were examined periodically for growth and discarded after six weeks. For animal inoculation, one ml of the supernatant layer of each suspension was injected intraperitoneally into mice. Each suspension was used to inoculate five mice. Pieces of the livers, spleens and lungs of animals that died were planted on Sabourauds dextrose agar slants. The remaining animals were sacrified after three weeks and the organs similarly planted. The cultures directly planted with the samples did not show any growth of pathogenic fungi, and most eventually became overgrown with contaminants. However, Trichophyton mentagrophytes was isolated from the livers or spleens of two animals inoculated with portions of Sample 3, composed of vacuum cleaner sweepings. The macroscopic and microscopic features of these isolates were characteristic (FIGS. 1,

Further isolations of Trichophyton mentagrophytes from inanimate sources

The accidental isolations of Trichophyton mentagrophytes from a dust sample gathered from the the floor of a schoolroom and from a comb used by a child with tinea capitis due to Trichophyton tonsurans are described.

In vitro Study of Antifungal Activity of Nitrostyrenes.

Summary In screening 53 compounds with chemical formulae related to the stilbene nucleus for antifungal activity by the serial dilution agar method, a number of nitrosty-renes were found to exhibit a high degree of activity against pathogenic fungi.

Review of literature on medical mycology in the Philippines, 1955-1962.

The Philippines is an archipelago of about 7,100 tropical islands situated in the western Pacific Ocean 600 miles off the southeast corner of Asia. Located only about 15 ° north of the equator, the country has its share of tropical diseases, such as malaria, yaws, filariasis, schistosomiasis, typhoid fever, dysentery, intestinal parasitism, and mycotic infections. The beginnings of medical mycology in the Philippines may be traced to a number of publications by a singular group of American scientists, including STRONG, MUSGRAV~ and WADE, who worked in the Bureau of Science in Manila during the early years of the American regime in the Philippines, at the turn of the century. STRONC 1 in 1906, described what is probably the first recorded case of mycotic infection in the Philippines. The patient was a 35-year old Filipino woman with a skin lesion simulating a Delhi boil and exhibiting ttistoplasma-like organisms in tissue sections. These early reports in the Philippine Journal of Science were followed by a long period of inactivity, interrupted only by occasional articles on mycetoma, rhinosporidiosis and candidiasis. After the Second World War, however, with the return of Filipino dermatologists and microbiologists who trained in the United States and with the organization of a Medical Mycology Unit in the Department of Microbiology of the Institute of Hygiene in Manila, there was an upsurge of interest and activity in the study of fungous diseases. SIMUANGCO 2 in 1955, reported on the status of fungous diseases in the Philippines and reviewed the 1Rerature up to that year. The present review is a critical survey of publications pertaining to medical mycology in the Philippines from 1955 trough June, 1962.

A family outbreak of tinea capitis due to Trichophyton violaceum in Michigan. Its control with griseofulvin

An outbreak of tinea capitis caused byTrichophyton violaceum in five siblings of a family of eight in Michigan and its control with griseofulvin are described.An outbreak of tinea capitis caused byTrichophyton violaceum in five siblings of a family of eight in Michigan and its control with griseofulvin are described.

Anaflora|[mdash]|A New Anionic Detergent

Preliminary screening surveys have indicated that Anaflora,t a new anionic detergent, possesses promising anti-microbial activity (1). A pilot study was designed, therefore, to investigate the antifungal and antibacterial properties of Anaflora and Anaflora incorporated in either detergent or soap bars. J The subjects in the study were male junior and senior medical students or members of the hospital staff. Volunteers wTere instructed to substitute the Anaflora detergent bar or soap bar for their regular toilet soap and shampoo. In addition, each subject was directed specifically to wash his feet daily. All other antifungal and antibacterial preparations were discontinued. The study covered an eight week period from 9 March, 1959, through 2 May, 1959, with all clinical and laboratory examinations performed initially and at 4 and 8 week intervals.