J. Lamar Callaway

Primary inoculation blastomycosis in a veterinarian

A veterinarian cut his finger while performing an autopsy on a dog subsequently confirmed to have died of blastomycosis. A typical chancriform complex developed at the site of inoculation. Culture of the lesion grew Blastomyces dermatitidis. Healing of the lesion occurred after 7 months and a course of potassium iodide. This is the first reported case of a canine necropsy accident leading to primary inoculation blastomycosis.

Congenital ectodermal defect

Summary A case of congenital ectodermal defect of the scalp is presented. The scalp lesion is typical clinically of the majority of cases previously described. However, the ankle lesion, unlike most ectodermal defects, is not symmetrical and is associated with a decided deformity due to scar tissue formation.

EXFOLIATIVE DERMATITIS DUE TO PHENOBARBITAL: REPORT OF A CASE WITH RECOVERY

Excerpt Since their introduction for clinical use in 1913, the barbiturates have found an increasingly prominent and deserved place among the commonly used sedatives. The increasing number of repor...

A study of the incidence of syphilis in pregnant women and some results of therapy

Abstract Recently we made a determination of the incidence of syphilis in the patients seen at Duke Hospital. As a whole it was found to be 8.13 per cent. There was a marked disproportion between the white and colored patients. The incidence in white male patients was 2.7 per cent, and for the white female patients 3.2 per cent. In colored males the incidence of infection was 29 per cent and in the colored females 32 per cent. As can be seen from these figures, for the population group from which these patients were drawn, the incidence of syphilis in the colored race was roughly ten times that of the white race, and a greater incidence of syphilis was found in the females of both races. Because of this finding, we felt that a determination of the incidence of syphilis in pregnant women should be made because of its implications as a public health problem and as a problem of preventive medicine. As a basis for this study the records of 2,152 unselected patients, all pregnant women, who were admitted during the years 1930 to 1938 to the obstetric wards, both private and public, of this hospital were examined. The criteria employed for the diagnosis of syphilis consisted of either the laboratory finding of repeatedly positive blood serology and, in early seronegative syphilis, the finding of the Treponema pallidum on repeated dark-field examinations, or a definite history of syphilis for which no treatment or inadequate or insufficient treatment had been received with or without physical signs or stigmas of syphilis. Blood serologic examinations were made routinely on all the obstetric patients at the time of their first visit to the prenatal clinics or at the time of their admission to the hospital, if no prenatal examinations had been made, and also in most cases serologic examinations were again made at the time of delivery. The serologic tests used were the Wassermann and Kahn reactions. All of the patients diagnosed as having syphilis in the group on which this study was based were found to have a strongly positive Wassermann and/or Kahn reaction with the exception of 9 cases. Of these 9 serologically negative cases, 8 of the patients gave a definite history of syphilis and of having received some treatment prior to their pregnancy and 1 patient had dark-field, positive, seronegative, primary syphilis.

Cutaneous Sarcoidosis and Ocular Histoplasmosis

To the Editor.— We recently saw a patient with the unusual clinical manifestation of generalized cutaneous sarcoidosis with clinical evidence of histoplasmosis involving the right eye. The patient was a 14-year-old boy, who had lived in North Carolina all his life. When he was 11 years old, he was first noted to have erythema, atrophy, and dilated blood vessels in the skin on his lower extremities. Shortly thereafter, he developed violaceous plaques on his chest and right axilla. A biopsy specimen from one of the plaques showed a granulomatous reaction compatible with sarcoidosis. Stains for fungi and acid-fast organisms were negative. There was no organomegaly or lymphadenopathy at that time, and all laboratory data obtained were within normal limits. The patient was placed on a regimen of 30 mg of prednisone every other day; the skin lesions improved thereafter. When the patient was 13 years old, a Kveim test was

Superficial mycotic infections of the skin: diagnosis and therapy.

Abstract Superficial fungi are widespread and stubborn pathogens. The diseases they produce are not fatal but are frequently disabling. During World War II, dermatophytosis was the second most common cause of admission to the hospital for dermatologic disease among men and women in the Armed Forces, eczema being the first. Classification of the superficial fungi on an etiologic basis is unsatisfactory, as a single species may cause a variety of clinical manifestations in different parts of the body or in different individuals. On the other hand, the same clinical picture may be produced by different species of fungi. In the following discussion, fungus infections will be considered according to the topography of the body involved.

Treatment of benign tumors of the skin.

Common benign tumors of the skin have been described, insofar as their clinical characteristics are concerned, and a suggested form of treatment outlined. Benign tumors of the skin have been classified as to whether therapy is necessary because of the possible development of malignancy or for untoward reactions, whether treatment is desirable for cosmetic reasons, and those for which treatment is unnecessary or may be unsuccessful.