Medicine: Man & His Itches

Among the minor ills that bring discomforts to man, few are so persistent or so hard to treat as fungus infections—the cause of ringworm (including the stubborn ringworm of the nails), barber's itch, athlete's foot, and jockstrap itch. Last week 300 specialists in fungus infections, convened in Manhattan under auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, agreed that 1959 had marked a turning point in the history of man and his itches: a new antibiotic, griseofulvin (extracted from a Penicillium species closely related to the source of penicillin), is the best remedy so far discovered for fungus infections that obligingly concentrate on the body's outer surfaces.

Around the world there are dozens of fungi that infect man, animals or the soil, reported the U.S. Public Health Service's Dr. Libero Ajello, and their distribution changed radically during World War II. Species that had been confined to the Asian and Australasian tropics found new hosts in U.S. servicemen on Pacific duty, and Korean orphans carried one species to Europe. Dermatophytology (the study of fungi that infect the skin) may give a valuable assist to anthropology, Dr. Ajello suggested, because a variety prevalent in eastern Asia occurs also among Central American Indians, supporting the theory of an eastward migration to the Americas.

While griseofulvin, taken by mouth, has proved remarkably successful against external fungal infections, most researchers have reported it useless against internal (systemic) infections. Mexico's Dr. Antonio González-Ochoa worried about this, tried griseofulvin against several deep-seated fungal infections. In all but one it failed. The exception was sporotrichosis, in which Sporotrichum schenckii attacks the lymph nodes and often causes hidden ulcers. In his first two patients treated with griseofulvin, he found the antibiotic as effective as the conventional potassium iodide treatment. Dr. González-Ochoa's conclusion: the idea that griseofulvin is useful only against surface infections is too glib; it should also be "tested against internal fungal infections, for some of which no cure is now known.