(Original Jlrtkks. 



ON AX EPIDEMIC OF TRICOPHYTON TONSURANS.^ 



By WILLIA3I E. A. Axox, M.RS.L., F.S.S., 



Corresponding Member of the Caracas Society of Natural and Physical Science* 



Some years ago I knew well a person who was in the habit of being 

 shaved by a barber, and who on one occasion noticed that the operator 

 had not been very particular in cleaning the instrument with which 

 he had just mown the face of another client. A word of remonstrance 

 was addressed to the Figaro, but without avail. A man with his 

 mouth covered with soap and lather, with a person flourishing a lethal 

 weapon in his face, is not advantageously placed for argument. The 

 victim in this case had reason to regret, for shortly after, ringworm 

 developed on his chin, and it was not without much difficulty that he 

 got rid of the troublesome visitation. . Ever afterwards he trusted 

 his own razor alone. 



This circumstance has been brought to my memory by a recent 

 epidemic of ringworm in France, the particulars of which were 

 brought before the May meeting of the French Academy of Medicine 

 by Dr. Gerlier, of Ferney-Yoltaire. A servant of the college at 

 Ferney, after being shaved, developed rings of Herpes circhiatiis on 

 his chin. Ten other customers of the same barber were attacked in 

 the same way between October, 1879, and April, 1880. There were 

 also five persons to. whom the disease was communicated in the 

 household of a client, who himself had four Herpes circinatus and one 

 TiMea tonsurans. The son of the barber went to a school at Sacounex, 

 where fourteen children were attacked by Tinea tonsurans., and eight 

 by Herpes circinatus. It was the common opinion that this epidemic 

 had originated from the child of a horse-shearer, whose father had 

 cut his hair with a pair of horse-shears. The doctor advised the 

 people to shave themselves, or, if they went to the barber's, to have 

 instruments and linen for their own special use. This counsel the 

 village hairdresser resented, and posted a placard in the market- 

 place, in which the doctor was denounced as a libeller. The police, 

 as a matter of course, interfered on the wrong side, and protected the 

 barber's calumnious poster. The Academy of Medicine was informed 

 N. S., Vol. vii.— Oct., 1881. 



* Eead before the Manchester Cryptogamic Society, July 17th, 1881. 



