680 



MEDICAL MYCOLOGY 



MADURELLA 



Madurella Brumpt, C. R. Soc. Biol. 57: 999, 1905. 



Streptothrix mycetonii Laveraii is the type species. 



Mycelium white at first, parasitic on a variety of animal tissues; bones, 

 muscles, connective tissue. The vegetative hyphae have a diameter always 

 larger than 1/x, sometimes up to 8-10j«. These hyphae are septate, branch from 

 time to time and secrete a brown pigment (Fig. 110). In age they agglomerate 

 into sclerotia where one finds a variable quantity of spherical bodies, 8-30/x 

 in diameter (chlamydospores). 



Fig. 110. — Madurella mycetonii. Mycelium and chlamydospore.s. (After Brumpt 1906.) 



Members of this genus have been found almost exclusively in mycetoma 

 with black grains (maduromycosis, Madura foot, etc.). This disease has been 

 known clinically for several centuries in India and has been repeatedly de- 

 scribed (cf. Carter 1874, Brumpt 1906, Musgrave & Clegg 1907, Gammel 1926, 

 Heitor Froes 1930 for excellent summaries of the literature). It seems to be 

 more common in regions with hot dry seasons where the vegetation abounds 

 in thorns and the natives go barefoot, a large proportion of the patients giving 

 the history of a thorn in the foot some time before the lesion became serious. 

 However, the cases are not confined to such regions. The lesions are usually 

 restricted to the feet, but are occasionally found in other situations, such as 



