BLASTOMYCOTIC MENINGO-ENCEPHALITIS

Abstract

Blastomycosis is caused by a group of allied yeastlike organisms, which are usually surrounded by a thick hyaline capsule and which multiply in the tissues by budding. Because of the latter characteristic, they have been called blastomycetes. The first case of blastomycosis was reported by Busse in 1894, and this was followed, in 1896, by the first study from the United States by Gilchrist and Stokes.¹Since then numerous cases of the disease have been reported from various parts of this country. The larger proportion of the cases of blastomycosis studied from the clinical as well as the histologic and cultural standpoints, however, have been reported from Chicago. Clinically, blastomycosis appears in cutaneous forms and as the so-called systemic blastomycosis. The cutaneous form is no longer regarded as uncommon, but systemic or generalized blastomycosis is still recognized as rare. The organisms in systemic blastomycosis have been recovered from the