Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/323

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TROPICAL TRICHOPHYTOSIS.
295

effects from their absorption. He remembered the case of a young European who used one of the patent dhobie itch ointments, all of which contain a large amount of Goa powder. He applied it once only, but the day after he had erythema of the whole body with enormous œdematous infiltration of the penis and scrotum. His urine contained albumen and casts for several days. He also agreed to a certain extent with Dr. Carnegie Brown's remarks as to cultivation, and thought that many of the so-called pure cultures were very impure indeed. There was no doubt, however, that by using proper laboratory methods it was possible to grow some of these fungi. In reply to Dr. Sandwith's questions as to mycetoma, that disease was found in Ceylon, although it was not so common as in the south of India, but in the clinic for tropical diseases they always had two or three cases. The varieties of mycetoma obtained in Ceylon were the yellow and the black; so far he had not come across the red species. Mycetoma was by no means confined to the foot; he remembered a very interesting case, that of a woman who had typical and simultaneous infections in one foot and in the right mamma. The breast was removed and the streptothrix in it and in the foot were absolutely identical. Clinically, also, the symptoms were the same. In reply to Dr. Graham Little, he had always used Sabouraud's medium, and at the same time ordinary agar. In his last article on Trichophytosis in the Journal of Parasitology, Sabouraud said that, while on sugar media the fungi presented a high degree of pleomorphism, in media which did not contain sugar, pleomorphism was practically absent. Of course, in media devoid of sugar the growth of vegetable parasites was scanty, but for the purpose of comparing various species of trichophytons — at least tropical trichophytons — it was necessary to use