MAN-EATING MOULDS

Evening Star, Issue 20311, 21 October 1929, Page 13

MAN-EATING MOULDS

TINY PARASITES SOME HARMLESS: OTHERS VICIOUS, The tiny plants called moulds, very familiar as parasitic growths on vegetable substances, have now taken to invading the human body—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that these occasional invasions are now being recognised and studied. That many are by .no means harmless appears from 41 descriptive article contributed to the ‘American Weekly ’ (New York). The author starts out with a tale of a Georgia housewife, who, when clearing out a closet in the attic, lifted up a pair of mouldy shoes, brushed them off —and six weeks later was in the hospital with a serious lung trouble. The housewife, wo are assured, might have lost her life if hei physician had not known that yeasts and moulds, familiar on stale broad, cheese, and foods, sometimes go wrong and attack the human body. We read further; “ Not until recently has the medical world understood that these moulds, familiar to every housewife, may attack the lungs, the bones, and internal organs. Not even the heart or the brain is immune, for moulds have been found in both at post-mortems. Some of the mould diseases yield quite readily, but others are fatal. “ Eighty years ago the German surgeon, Dr Bernhard Von Langerbeck, discovered the first case of _ internal mould disease in a human being. Almost unbelievable, it seemed to the experts then, and still seems to biologists now, that members of the worldwide harmless mould family should invade a living humban body and kill it. Nevertheless, Dr Von Langenbeck’s conclusion now has unquestionable support. “In 1857 the first case of internal mould infection was found in America. In 1925 Dr A. H. Sanford collected records of 680 cases of mould diseases. Reports in medical periodicals make it virtually certain that the number of cases has more than doubled. “An interesting observation was made by Dr Arthur G. Fort, of Atlanta. Georgia, after the Florida hurricane of 1926 For six weeks he received a continuous succession of patients, suffering from infections with moulds in the outer passages of their ears. The obvious interpretation would be that the wind and general disturbance ,of the hurricane had blown out from concealment in the soil or elsewhere millions of mould germs, some of which ■found lodgment and places to grow inside the ears of the inhabitants. THOUSANDS OF VARIETIES.

Experts recognise three different kinds of micro-organisms that can attack the human body, we are told. There are first tho animal parasites, like the germ of malaria; then the bacteria; and, finally, the moulds. For these tho body has less tolerance than for the bacteria ; but fortunately most of the moulds confine themselves to living on mineral ox deal substances or in the bodies of plants. The writer goes on: « “ The experts on moulds have identified thousands of kindsi of which only, thirty-seven have been blamed with any definiteness at all for human disease

“ For thousands of years a few of these moulds, have occasionally "at-

tacked the outer surfaces of the body. Ringworm is duo to one of these moulds. Fortunately, this particular mould is easily killed, and has never been known to invade the internal organs or to cause death. “'Far more serious is the mould now known to have caused the first case 01 internal mould infection ever discovered, 1848. Known as the ‘ ray mould, because its tiny, microscopic filaments have the habit of arranging themselves in radiating balls,, this mould causes the disease called ‘ woody tongue ’ in cattle. Another closely related variety causes the serious tropical disease of man called Madura foot, in which ulcers form and will not heal. Both varieties of. this ray mould apparently are learning to invade' the human internal organs. “Still more dangerous, however, are two other moulds known almost nowhere except in the human body, discovered in 1896 and 1898 by Dr Thomas C. Gilchrist and Dr B. R. Schenck. of the John Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. “Dr Gilchrist’s mould is probably the one that is most , actively increasing its attack on mankind. An increasing percentage of cases resembling consumption or other lung trouble is being found due to this virulent organism. No sure means is known of combating it. “ When an infection with the mould is far gone, the cells and filaments are found to have permeated almost the entire body, just as the black or bluish filaments of ordinary mould run here and there throughout the substance of a neglected loaf of bread. INVADES BONES AND BRAIN. “This mould has been found in virtually every organ of the body; even in the centres of the bones, in the substances of the heart, and in the interior of the brain. Brain, invasion, however, is rare. “The third new kind of man-eating mould, discovered by Dr Schenck. is almost equally vicious, but seems commoner in tropical countries. Dr Jackson Blair, of Cleveland, recently encountered, however, two cases of serious infection with this mould, acquired by pricks from thorns of barberry bushes. Treated with the standard mould-fighting drug, sodium iodid, both victims recovered, “Within the past few years a fourth extremely serious variety of mould infection has appeared in California. Of all the mould infections, this one seems to be the most dangerous, as well-established _ internal infections are almost invariably fatal. “Medical literature contains hundreds of recent records of the spread and growing importance of other maneating moulds; some highly dangerous, others merely annoying. Dr, Ruth Vlvarez, of the University of California, reports, for_ example, a mould that made a rapidly-growing red carpet ovey n patient’s tongue; a carpet which ' yielded immediately, however, to medical treatment. At a clinic in New York City there arrived recently a patient whose ears contained a mould growth looking so much like ordinary cotton that the attending physicians were deceived. Fortunately, it seems that the moulds _ which are most difficult to ■’gtect in the human body and hardest to cure when they get a foothold, are also the rarer ones of the family ; or perhaps they are ones against which the body has best resistance.. If tb" man-eating . moulds coillcl invade th° bodv as easily as bacteria do, but rtifi had their owh peculiarly moukl-liV l ability to spread within the body and to resist expulsion, there is .small doubt that mankind would presently be exterminated by mould.’'-