PLANKTON 55 



Heise 277 described two cases in which systemic hyperergic pictures 

 appeared following swimming in a Wisconsin lake. In the one, the chief 

 manifestations were itching, conjunctivitis, blocked nares, and bronchial 

 asthma ; in the other, swollen eyelids, nasal stuffiness, and a severe general- 

 ized urticarial eruption were the presenting findings. In both cases, 

 Oscillatoraceae (Myxophyceae) were proven to be the causative organisms. 

 Heise also obtained many positive skin reactions to Microcystis among his 

 office patients. 



Local allergic phenomena have been recorded more frequently of late. 

 Sams 279 described an acute urticarial papular eruption — locally known as 

 "seabathers' eruption" — in swimmers off the southern coast of Florida. 

 Ayres, 280 in 1948, had a patient who swam in the Gulf of Mexico during 

 the "red tide," then developed an acute urticarial papular eruption. And 

 as recently as 1953, Cohen and Reif 281 reported phycocyanin, the blue 

 pigment in Anabaena, as the cause of an erythematous papulo-vesicular 

 contact dermatitis in a six-year old child who had bathed in a Pennsyl- 

 vania lake. 



Microscopic algae have also been assigned a more indirect role in some 

 human disease states. Mariani 282 reported on his and Redaelli's work with 

 Prototheca portoricensis. This alga, isolated from the stools of tropical 

 sprue patients in San Domingo, produced a transitory local caseous granu- 

 lomatosis in guinea pigs when injected intramuscularly or intraperitoneally. 

 No specific sensitization or immunization could be achieved even with 

 repeated injections. A related alga, Blastocystis enterocola, was isolated by 

 Newiadomski from human, rat, and mouse feces, and was considered by 

 him capable of passing through a Seitz filter. Mariani could not confirm 

 the filtrability of Blastocystis, nor did he prove any pathogenicity. Neither 

 could he corroborate Szendy's assertion that algae contributed to infections 

 in metapneumothorax. 



Although algae have been isolated from the skins of animals, none 

 has yet been reported resident on the intact human epidermis. 283 However, 

 in 1946, de Almeida and his colleagues 284 in Brazil isolated Chlorella 

 from lesions of three patients with mycoses. The first had perirenal actino- 

 mycosis; the second, pulmonary and lingual paracoccidiosis (brasiliensis) ; 

 and the third, lymphatic and dermal paracoccidiosis. The Chlorella was 

 not considered a contaminant, but the authors debated whether it might 

 be pathogenic either alone or in association with the fungi. They wondered, 

 too, whether the pathogenicity of the fungi might not even have been 

 lessened by the action of "chlorellin," an antibiotic substance isolated from 



