EXPERIMENTAL CREEPING ERUPTION FROM A CAT AND DOG HOOKWORM (A. BRAZILIENSE)

Until two years ago it was generally conceded that creeping eruption was due to the wanderings of a botfly larva within the human skin. In rarer instances, creeping diseases were known to be due to like migrations of pig nematodes and to larvae of the cattle "heel fly." These causative agents, however, did not explain the great number of cases of creeping eruption encountered in the Atlantic and Gulf states. After a perusal of the literature of this section, one is impressed with the fact that contact with sand is frequently mentioned in the histories of patients with this cutaneous condition. Whatever the etiology of creeping eruption, bodily contact with damp earth plays a most important role. The dermatologists of our southern coastal region, many of whom have seen hundreds of cases of this disease, have long believed that this medium would some day be proved the temporary or permanent