644 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 





Cultivation is comparatively simple and is best carried out upon 

 acid glucose agar or gelatin. Upon such media, within five or six days, 

 mycelial threads, which are septate and form chlamydospores, may be 

 observed. Pigment, reddish or brown, is occasionally noted. Gelatin 

 is liquefied. The disease may be produced with such cultures upon 

 guinea-pigs. In man, the disease is usually acquired by infection from 

 patient to patient. 



Other Diseases in which Hyphomycetes have been Found. A 

 number of cases have been described in which members of this group 

 have been found at autopsy in the lungs of persons dying of broncho- 

 pneumonia. 1 In most of these cases, the fungus found belonged to the 

 aspergillus group and was regarded as a merely secondary invader. 

 A few cases, however, have been reported in which the fungus was re- 

 garded as the primary cause of the disease. A single case is on record, 

 in which an intestinal infection with a member of the genus mucor 

 resulted in a generalized infection with pulmonary and secondary 

 cerebral abscesses. In birds, a disease of the lungs has long been 

 known to be due to various species of aspergillus. In many domestic 

 animals, diseases of the skin and hair occur which are caused by micro- 

 organisms similar to, or identical with, those occurring in man. 



SPOROTRICHOSIS 



Parasites closely allied to the blastomyces are the sporotrices which 

 were first described by Schenck 2 in this country and have been very 

 thoroughly studied by De Beurmann and Gougerot. The parasites 

 belong to the Fungi imperfecti. They occur in lesions as oval or cigar- 

 shaped spores (conidia) and grow in culture as branching septate 

 mycelium with clusters of oval or spherical conidia about the ends of 

 the hyphse. According to some observers the conidia are attached 

 to the mycelium by short pedicles. The conidia also occur along the 

 sides of the hyphse and are often grouped in whorls about the threads. 

 Chlamydospores are also found in some cultures. The organisms are 

 obligate aerobes and grow on all ordinary culture media, but better on 

 those containing carbohydrates and of slightly acid reaction. The 

 growth forms a thick, leathery, white coating on the surface of the 

 medium which in older cultures becomes coffee-colored, and in some 

 instances black. 



1 Sticker, Nothnagel, "Spez. Path. u. Ther.," 14, 1900. 



2 Schenck, Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., 1898, 286. 



