CANDIDA (MONILIA) ALBICANS

Abstract

FOR A LONG time it has been known that contamination or infection with Candida (Monilia) albicans exists in many conditions, some of which are malnutrition,¹ diabetes mellitus,² pregnancy,³ and idiopathic hypoparathyroidism.^* More recently, it has been noticed in patients receiving antibiotic therapy.† Experimentally, however, chlortetracycline (Aureomycin) has been found not to influence moniliasis in animals by Kligman,⁸ while it has by Morris.¹⁰ Skinner,¹¹ after reviewing 303 papers on yeast, believed that observations on the nutritional and physical changes on the morphology of Candida had been excellent but that they had been unsatisfactory from a biochemical standpoint. Reiss¹² might have been answering this challenge when he found that estrogenic and androgenic hormones, except for diethylstilbesterol, did not inhibit the growth of C. albicans and that several hormones, particularly pregnanediol, enhanced its growth. The effect of some vitamins on the growth of