A SEARCH FOR A NEW METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE FUNGICIDAL ACTION OF CHEMICALS

Abstract

The following studies were made because dermatologists in using fungicidal chemicals are concerned with two specific attributes: (1) fungicidity of the chemical in tolerable concentration and (2) penetrability to the layer of the epidermis in which fungi live and thrive. The usual laboratory procedures, of directly contaminating culture mediums with minimal concentrations of fungicidal chemicals, or of dipping fungous masses in dilutions of such chemicals for varying periods of time before seeding the masses on mediums, do not furnish practical data relative to either of the two aforementioned properties of the chemicals tested. To know that iodine, in a certain dilution, when intimately dispersed through a medium, might render the medium fungistatic or even fungicidal is of less value to the dermatologist than to know that iodine painted on the skin in nonirritating concentration might be expected to reach fungi beneath that surface and destroy them. We sought