Page:Tropical Diseases.djvu/953

XLVI] from leprosy by the absence of anæsthesia in the patches, and by the colour of the spots; from erythrasma, from ringworm, and from pityriasis versicolor by the colour, and by the microscopic characters of the fungus. Treatment.— Chrysophanic acid, preparations of sulphur, strong liniment of iodine, and other epiphyticides are indicated. Cleanliness and the destruction of old clothes are indispensable.

This peculiar disease of the hair is very common in certain districts of Colombia, South America. So far as is known, it is confined to the inhabitants of that country, of whom a considerable proportion, both male and female, and apparently belonging to all the races represented there, are affected. According to Juhel-Rénoy, whose observations practically coincide with the earlier accounts by Desenne, Cheadle, Morris, and others, the hairs of the affected scalp are dotted over at irregular intervals with numerous— twenty-three in a hair 60 cm. in length— minute, gritty nodosities. These, barely visible to the naked eye, are distinctly perceptible to the touch when the hair is drawn between finger and thumb. The affected hairs are bent and twisted, and tend to produce matting and knotting. The little nodosities, which, though very firm, are not so hard as the name piedra (a stone) would indicate, being easily cut through with a sharp knife or scissors, are paler than the hair which they surround, or partly surround, like a sheath. When a comb is drawn through the hair a sort of crepitation is produced, doubtless by the friction against the hard particles.

Under the microscope these excrescences are found to consist of a number of spore-like bodies, easily made apparent by soaking the hair in liquor potassæ after washing in ether. The spores (which are twice the size of trichophyton spores and remarkably refringent) from mutual pressure are polyhedral, and together form a sort of tessellated mosaic,