13 
I saw Doctor Gilchrist, the clinical professor of dermatology at Johns Hopkins 
University, yesterday, and he gave me the following description of the one case 
which he saw at the health department. I saw two other cases which corresponded 
with these in a general way. 
“The eruption consisted of about 1,000 wheals, or erythemato-withicarial spots, or 
papulo-withicarial lesions. As in the description in the reprint of Doctors Goldberger 
and Schamberg, of the United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, 
they varied in size from a lentil seed to a finger nail, and are round, oval, orirregular 
in shape. No vesicles or pustules were seen. The eruption was on the neck, chest, 
abdomen, and back, and also on arms and legs. Itching was present, and all lesions 
showed evidences of scratching.”’ 
Besides this, there were several cases reported to the writer from 
northern Maryland, where farmers in running their wheat through a 
fanning mill had been simultaneously troubled by a very similar or 
identical eruptive disease of the skin. In another instance, a thrasher- 
man engaged in feeding the unthrashed grain into the cylinder of 
Fig. 9.—Adult of jointworm (Jsosoma tritici). Much enlarged. (From Howard.) 
the thrashing machine was also affected by a disease of the skin, en- 
tirely unfamiliar to the attending physician, who could not classify 
it with any urticaroid dermatitis known to him. After the writer’s 
experience of previous years, it seemed impossible that this Pedicu- 
loides should become sufficiently abundant to cause this dermatitis 
without there being an excessive abundance of some host insect or 
insects affecting either the straw or the grain itself. Naturally, the 
studies made by him in 1882 led him to suspect that the Angoumois 
grain moth (Sitotroga cerealella) might be responsible for the abund- 
ance of the mites. Then, too, the fact that it attacked the wheat- 
straw worm (Jsosoma grande Riley) in wheat straw led him to suspect 
that, as this particular species is not known to occur in the vicinity 
of Philadelphia, while its near relative, the joint worm (/sosoma 
tritici Fitch) (fig. 9), does oceur more or less abundantly over the 
[Cir. 118] 
