Medicine: Ringworm

At the University of Pennsylvania three out of five students have ringworm. Half the adult population of the U. S., and practically everybody in the South, has suffered from the disease at some time or another. So annoying is this situation that Surgeon General Hugh S. Gumming of the U. S. Health Service last week sent a special bulletin to the health officer of every community in the U. S.

The mildest form of the disease is a little cracking or scaling between the toes. A vegetable parasite, related to the mould that grows upon stale bread, gets deeply into the skin. Soft corns are frequently due to ringworm infection. Sometimes the mould causes blisters, scaly eruptions, wartlike growths. Blisters may break and cause a wet, oozing surface that becomes covered with scabs.

Ringworm is caught at swimming pools, golf clubs, athletic clubs—wherever people use common dressing rooms. Wearing can vas slippers at such places will help prevent infection, as will the strict use of personal soaps and towels. Writes Surgeon General Gumming: “Probably the general tendency of the American public to spend a certain amount of time in hotels is largely responsible for the increase of this disease. There is no good proof that water in swimming pools is in any way responsible.”

Soaking in salt solution at least once a day helps cure. Keeping the “feet off hot floors and radiators is good. Ultraviolet light seems to be beneficial.

Infected persons should boil their towels, socks, gloves and linens for 15 minutes to kill the ringworm organisms. They must avoid infecting others; they should sleep with no one, at least while the disease is active.