Cutaneous Infection Due to Mycobacterium kansasii

IN THE RECENT literature the atypical or unclassified mycobacteria have become more apparent. Pulmonary infections due to these organisms have been recognized which simulated tuberculosis. More recently, cutaneous lesions have been reported. This report was prompted by the observation of a primary cutaneous infection of some 22 years' duration caused byMycobacterium kansasii. No similar cases due to this organism were found in a review of the literature. Report of a Case The patient is a 42-year-old white man, a rice farmer from the south Texas Gulf Coast. At the age of 11, while roller-skating on a concrete sidewalk, he sustained a 3inch laceration of the right knee which healed uneventfully. He frequently swam in the public swimming pool, but remembered no trauma related to this. He first developed a verrucose growth on his right knee in 1943, at the age of 21, while in military service. There had been