Word: ringworm
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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...
...school kids in the Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie (pop. 32,000) were having their heads examined last week. And with good reason: the Soo had been hit by a raging epidemic of tinea capitis (ringworm of the scalp). Of 5,712 elementary schoolchildren, 1,300 had ringworm; so had 150 preschool moppets and 64 youths and adults. On streets and playgrounds, every bobbing head was topped with a white cotton skullcap, compulsory for schoolchildren, strongly recommended for all others. It was the severest ringworm epidemic ever recorded in Canada...
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...