OIDIOMYCOSI8. 635 



sionally been found in diseased conditions of the 

 tonsils and pharynx. 



VIII. OIDIOMYCOSIS. 



In 1894 Gilchrist described a skin disease, which 

 has since been known as blastomycetic dermatitis, matm*. 

 or blastomycosis or oidiomycosis of the skin. From 

 a second case he cultivated a fungus which at first 

 he was inclined to consider as an oidium, but later 

 called a blastomyces. Since that time many simi- 

 lar cases, especially in Chicago and the adjacent 

 territory, have been discovered and reported by 

 Wells, Hektoen, Hyde and Montgomery, Eicketts 

 and others. In many instances the specific fungi 

 have been cultivated. 



Further investigations by Eixford and Gilchrist, systemic 

 Busse, Curtis, Hyde and Montgomery and others 

 have brought 'to light the existence of systemic 

 infections by fungi which are identical with those 

 found in blastomycetic dermatitis, and cases in 

 which the disease primarily was limited to the 

 skin have gone on to generalized infection. The 

 converse is also true, that infections which pri- 

 marily are systemic, or rather pulmonary, give rise 

 to secondary invasion of the skin in a large per- 

 centage of the cases. Busse and Curtis both de- 

 scribed infections with these organisms as Sac- 

 cliaromycosis hominis, on account of the fermenta- 

 tive powers of the organisms concerned. Sacchd" 

 romycosis ho minis, blastomycetic dermatitis and 

 generalized blastomycosis are identical processes 

 pathologically which have as their cause a group of 

 fungi, the individual strains of which may show 

 considerable differences. A similar disease which 



