Lie Kian Joe

SUBCUTANEOUS PHYCOMYCOSIS: A NEW DISEASE FOUND IN INDONESIA

Subcutaneous phycomycosis is a localized eosinophilic granuloma caused by a phycomycete that invades primarily the fat layer of the subcutaneous tissue. Three isolations of a Basidiobolus species and one of an unidentified phycomycete have been made in Indonesia. Five cases of subcutaneous phycomycosis have been found in Indonesia, and one case was observed recently in London, England, by W. St. C. Symmers in a Dutch girl who had come from Indonesia. Spontaneous healing took place after varying periods of time. The name phycomycosis is used to designate a fungus infection caused by a member of the phycomycetes. Its use was proposed in a previous paper (Lie Kian Joe et al., 1959) in order to avoid the more restricted connotations of mucormycosis, while the name of coccidioidomycosis is to be retained. The name phycomycosis includes infections caused by Mucor, Absidia, Rhizopus, Basidiobolus, and similar phycomycetes. The term is useful, too, for mycoses in which no culture was obtained, but in which sections of involved tissues revealed the presence of a fungus with a morphology usually associated with a phycomycete.

The problem of sending fecal specimens to a laboratory for the isolation of pathogenic Escherichia coli in tropical countries

DIARRI~A among infants is frequent in almost all tropical countries. In D jakarta, Indonesia, infantile gastroenteritis is often associated with the presence of pathogenic Escherichia coli in the feces. These bacteria are the most frequent cause of diarrhea among our newborn and young infants. Infections have been found to occur not only nosocomially, but also frequently at home. 1-4 It is possible that pathogenic E. coli is also a frequent cause of diarrhea in infants in other tropical countries. Complete serologic typing of pathogenic E. coli is an elaborate procedure which can be done in only a few centers in the world. Preliminary identification of the types, in which only the O antigen group is determined, is easier and less time consuming, but even this procedure cannot be carried out in many tropical areas. A simple and cheap method by which fecal samples could be sent to distant laboratories where preliminary or complete serologic typing of pathogenic E. coli can be carried out would