422 HIGHER HYPHOMYCETES AS THE CAUSE OF DISEASE 



the incubator. Artificial cultures of this mould exhibit considerable 

 pleomorphism, and this has led to the establishment of several varieties. 

 Achorion infects younger persons or animals more easily than older 

 ones. Mice are very frequently infected, and these, when caught by 

 cats, infect the latter. Man is infected frequently from animals. 



Achorion Keratophagus. This organism was named and described 

 by Ercolani. It is of the achorion type and was alleged to have 

 been the cause of an onychomycosis of donkeys and mules. The 

 affection is characterized by the formation of cavities between the 

 hoof and the lamina sensitiva and the invasion of the former by the 

 mould. It has not been possible to produce the disease artificially 

 by inoculation. 



Lopophyton Gallinarum. This organism, also known as Derma- 

 tomyces or Epidermophyton gallinarum, is a variety of Achorion 

 Schonleinii and causes favus or tinea cristae galli in chickens. The 

 organism affects the comb and forms on it whitish, mouldy looking 

 spots which finally cover the entire comb with a white layer which 

 increases in thickness until it finally forms a crust up to 8 mm. thick. 

 Two types of hyphens are found in the lesions, those of the one are 

 long and wavy, 2 to 5 micra thick, with irregular side branches; the 

 others are short, straight, or curved filaments, sometimes dichotomously 

 divided, composed of three to four thick- walled segments, which con- 

 tain a highly refractive protoplasm. The hyphens of this type are 

 from 4 to 6 micra thick and later fall apart. Some investigators 

 have looked upon the segments as spores. Cultures of this variety 

 of achorion found on chickens grow slowly and form an intensely 

 red pigment; they liquefy gelatin. 



Fusarium Equinum. This name was given by Noergaard to a 

 fusarium 1 found by Melvin and Mohler as the apparent cause of a 

 dermatomycosis in many hundred horses in the Umatilla Indian 

 Reservation in Oregon. Fusaria are hyphomycetes with septate 

 mycelia (mycomycetes) and belong to the class of ascomycetes. These 

 are moulds which develop an ascus or sac in which endogenous spores 

 are formed. The spores formed in such a special spore sac or ascus 

 are known as ascospores. This organism, it appears, enters the hair 

 follicles, where it multiplies, bringing about an irritation which causes 

 pruritus and the formation of a little scurf around two or three hairs. 

 When the scurf is rubbed off a red, moist, denuded surface is left 

 in its place. The spores of the organism can be seen in sections of 

 the skin. They are especially numerous in the hair follicles; mycelial 

 threads are likewise encountered. Melvin and Mohler succeeded in 

 obtaining the organism in pure cultures and found that the growth 

 remained pure white on all media except plain Dunham's solution 

 on which the-lower surface in contact with the fluid became a chocolate 



1 It is described fully in the Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry, 1907, Dermal Mycosis, etc., Melvin and Mohler, p. 260. 



