242 



SPECIFIC MICRO-ORGANISMS 



Coccidioides Immitis.^ — Posadas^ and Wernicke^ first ob- 

 served in human lesions the doubly contoured spherical forms of 

 this organism, which multiplies in the tissues by endogenous 

 spore formation. They regarded the parasite as a protozoon. 

 The organism was named Coccidioides immitis by Rixford and 

 Gilchrist in 1896 and it was recognized as a mold by Ophuls 

 and Moffitt in 1900. Wolbach, in 1904, made an extensive study 



50 



lylL 



Fig. 95 . — Coccidioides immitis: a, b and c represent the doubly contoured spheres 

 seen in fresh pus; d represents the same organism as a after incuBation for 24 hours 

 at 33° C. in a hanging-block culture. (After MacNeal and Taylor.) 



of the organism in cultures and by inoculation of animals. In 

 1914, MacNeaP and Taylor followed the transformation of the 



1 Posadas, Infectiose generalisierte Psorospermosis. Buenos Aires, 1897; 

 Ref. in Monatshefte f. prakt. Dermatol., 1898, 27, p. 593; Psorospermiose in- 

 fectante g6n6ralis&. Revue de Chirurgie, 1900, 21, p. 276. 



2 Wernicke, Ueber einen Protozoenbefund bei Mycosis fungoides? Centralbl. 

 f. Bakt., 1892, 21, p. 859. 



' MacNeal and Taylor, Coccidioides immitis and coccidioidal granuloma. 

 Journal of Med. Rsch., 1914,30, p. 261. References to previous literature are given 

 in this paper. 



