Eidamella Spinosa (Matruchot and Dassonville) Refound

Matruchot and Dassonville (11) published their account of Eidamella spinosa in 1901 for the first and only time that this organism has been reported. In the spring of 1936 Dr. N. F. Conant of the Department of Bacteriology, Duke Medical College, gave to the writer a culture of an obviously gymnoascaceous fungus, which he had cultured from a fingernail while working at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in 1935. The fungus was at that time tentatively identified as Eidam1ella spinosa (Mat. & Dass.). Since then the organism has been extensively studied in this laboratory and compared with the very lucid description of the two original authors and with other members of the family Gymnoascaceae. Cultures of the original strain have not been available, but there can be no doubt of its identity with the fungus described as causing a skin condition in a dog in France in 1901, although certain minute differences are noticeable, as will be shown below. These are, however, taken to be within the limits of variation of the form, or as due to differences in observation. Matruchot and Dassonville considered Eidamella spinosa to be a true dermatophyte, although they were unable to reproduce typical lesions by inoculation. They did, however, isolate it more than once from the original lesion. The writer has also been unable to produce typical ringworm lesions with the present cultures, even though he has attempted to inoculate both himself and guinea pigs. The fact, however, remains that this fungus, the two times that it has been found, has occurred in definitely pathological conditions. This fact along with the knowledge that to experimentally induce infection with ringworm fungi is very difficult, can be taken as highly suggestive, though by no means final. The