Ringworm Infection in a Cucumber Greenhouse

Of infections of skin and hair by dermatophytes those caused by some of the Microsporum species are apt to be encountered in epidemics. Cases of which M. gypseum is the cause are, however, much less frequent than those caused by M. canis or M. audouini. Warren (1956) recorded epidemics of over 1,000 cases with only two examples of infection due to M. gypseum. La Touche (1952) recorded M. canis as the predominant strain in Leeds. He related this finding to the animal reservoir. The report of the Medical Mycology Committee of the Medical Research Council (1956) does not mention M. gypseum as a prominent cause of ringworm and devotes attention to M. canis, which is known to have an animal habitat, and to M. audouini, which is known to spread essentially by human contact. M. gypseum has been repeatedly isolated from soil since Vanbreuseghem and Van Brussel (1952) took advantage of its keratinophilic properties to evolve a technique for the isolation of keratinophilic fungi from soil by baiting with hair. The present paper records, for the first time, an epidemic caused by M. gypseum in which the fungus was grown from soil which confirmed that infection was actually contracted from the soil itself. An epidemic was recorded by Whittle (1954) which was associated with work in a greenhouse, but the causative fungus was not isolated from the soil.