2094 



TROPICAL DERMATOMYCOSES 



tributed; in each country there are locaHties where the disease is 

 common, while other districts are almost unaffected. In Columbia 

 it is the northern province of Santander which is more particularly 

 affected; in Mexico the disease is most frequently found in the 

 provinces of Tabaxo, Chiaspas, Valladolid, Michoacan. 



A few cases of pinta have been reported from Egypt by Madden, 

 Goodman, and Sandwith, and previously Legrain described some- 

 what similar cases from Tripoli and the Sahara. Legrain, however, 

 did not find any fungus. A few isolated cases have also been 

 reported from the Gold Coast, and others from the Philippine Islands 

 by P. G. Woolley. In Ceylon and India only imported cases are seen. 



etiology. — Previously to Ruiz y Sandoval and Montoya's in- 

 vestigations the disease used to be ascribed to many different causes. 

 Some authors believed it to be due to the mineral salts (sulphates) 

 contained in the waters of the mines and other localities where the 

 malady is endemic; others considered it to be due simply to insani- 

 tary conditions, insufficient food, and a hot and damp climate; 

 others, again, believed the affection to be induced by the action 

 on the skin of volcanic cinders; while, according to some authorities, 

 the malady was an hereditary complaint. 



Ruiz y Sandoval, in Mexico, first detected the parasitic natm^e 

 of pinta. He believed there was only one species of fungus to be 

 found in the affection, and that the different colours of the patches 

 were due to the different depths at which the fungus was growing 

 in the various strata of the epidermis. Montoya's classical re- 

 searches in 1898 clearly showed the plurality of species and genera 

 of the fungi found in the disease, and demonstrated that each variety 

 of pinta is due to a different fungus. More than twenty different 

 species were found by him. 



In the present state of our knowledge of pinta it is impossible 

 to give a satisfactory classification of these fungi. The principal 

 ones may be collected into the following groups: — 



I. Fungi of genus Aspergillus : Aspergillus pictor Blanchard, 



1895, and several other species. A. pictor is found in the 

 pure violet variety of pinta ; the other species are observed 

 in the pure blue and bluish and violet-black varieties, as 

 well as in a form of the red variety. Several of these species 

 are not in reality true Aspergilli, as they possess organs of 

 fructification intermediate between those of the genus 

 Aspergillus and those of the genus Penicillium. 



II. Fungi of genus Penicillium : Penicillium montoyai Castellani, 



1907, and several other species. They are found in some 

 greyish-violet varieties of pinta. 



III. Fungi of genus Monilia : Monilia montoyai Castellani, 1907. 



Found in some cases of white pinta. 



IV. Fungi of genus Montoyella : Montoyella nigra Castellani, 1907. 



Found in one variety of black pinta. M. boxini Castellani, 

 1907. Found in a red variety of pinta. 



