IDENTITY OF AMERICAN AND FRENCH SPOROTRICHOSIS 125 



used. He concluded that these organisms are identical so 'far 

 as this test is concerned. 



Bloch'' 1 in 1909 was the first to obtain a positive skin re- 

 action in a case of sporotrichosis though some work had been 

 done along this line by de Beurmann and Gougerot in 1906 

 without definite results. Bloch used a ' ' sporotrichosine " ex- 

 tracted from a broth culture. The reaction was very definite. 

 French workers, especially de Beurmann, and Gougerot and 

 Chopin, about the same time took up this work, using in- 

 tracutaneous injections of extracts of the killed organisms in 

 salt solution and obtained positive results. The reaction, 

 however, was shown by them not to be absolutely specific. 

 Other mycoses (actinomycosis, oosporosis, saccharomycosis, ex- 

 ascosis, at times tuberculosis) responded so that the method 

 was useful according to them only for the differentiation of a 

 rather large group. From their data, one would conclude 

 that this method could have no value for differentiating 

 closely related organisms belonging to the genus sporotricha. 



Recently Moore and the writer tested a human case of 

 typical sporotrichosis with a sporotrichosine consisting of 

 killed sporothrix in salt solution. The patient was tested both 

 when receiving and not receiving potassium iodide. A very 

 distinct skin reaction was obtained with the- sporotrichosine 

 made from the original Sporotrichum schenckii and also from 

 a strain of Sporotrichum beurmanni obtained from Gougerot. 

 No differences were noted in these reactions which were very 

 definite and measured 5 to 7 centimeters across. Controls 

 with " blast omycine " made in exactly the same way from 

 a blastomycete isolated from a typical case of blastomycosis 

 did not give a positive reaction in this patient. Sporotricho- 

 sine injected into the skin of the patient with blastomycosis 

 gave no reaction; nor did he react to his own blastomycine. 

 Agar alone in y 2 per cent suspension injected into persons 

 when taking potassium iodide (t. i. d. 10 grains) gave a 

 definite reaction but was not nearly as pronounced as that 

 given by the "sporotrichosine". Normal persons receiving 

 potassium iodide (t. i. d. 10 grains) reacted no stronger to 



31 Beihefte zur Med. Klinik, Basel, 8, p. 179, 1909. 



