EXPERIMENTAL CHRONIC CUTANEOUS BLASTOMYCOSIS IN MONKEYS

Abstract

The clinical term blastomycosis has been used to designate any disease caused by a yeastlike fungus. At the present time, however, there is a growing tendency to limit this term to those diseases in which the causative fungi occur in the lesions, without associated mycelium, as large, round to oval cells possessing well defined membranes, well marked double contours and granular cytoplasm and multiplying in the tissues by budding, though capable of producing hyphae in more or less abundance in cultures. In line with this conception it is customary to designate those diseases caused by other yeastlike fungi by more specific terms, such as coccidioidal granuloma, sporotrichosis, torulosis and cytomycosis. It is now evident that the term blastomycosis is doubly a misnomer. It was applied under the mistaken impression (1) that the causative organism is a true yeast and (2) that Blastomyces instead of Saccharomyces is the correct scientific name