Word: ringworm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...months ago, when we ran our story on the Soo's all-out fight against the worst ringworm epidemic ever recorded in the U.S. or Canada, 1,500 sufferers were taking painful treatments. Hundreds yelled while nurses snatched infected hairs out by the roots. The city was so itchy that teachers led classroom prayers for the plague to be lifted...
Reader response was immediate and varied-and free. An Arkansas lawyer recommended that doctors use the juice of green walnut hulls, which had cured his grandson. A Brooklyn insecticide company asked permission to fog the whole town with a special germicide. One company wanted to send 500 cases of ringworm medicine. Dozens of firms offered cures. Some sent doctors to study the epidemic and supervise treatment...
Pesky Problem. The source of Sault Ste. Marie's epidemic was plain. Last March five youngsters with ringworm were allowed back in school too soon after routine treatment by their family doctors. All summer the disease spread (encouraged by a long damp spell and barbers' unsterilized clippers). Not until school opened did authorities realize how far it had got out of hand...
...through the city's treatment centers. "I believe a new deal will come out of this epidemic here," he said. "Too many people, and even too many doctors, don't know enough about this pesky disease." Main plank in Dr. Gimby's new deal for ringworm : changes in health laws to make the disease reportable and handled as a public health problem...
...Misnamed more than 500 years ago, ringworm is caused not by a worm but by a fungus, usually Microsporon audouini. In North America the commonest fungus disease is popularly called "athlete's foot...