PLATES XVII-XXI S I N C E the establishment of the causal relation between microorganisms and infectious diseases, a wide variety of agents have been found to be pathogenic. However, algae have seldom been associated with disease, and rarely incriminated as the causal agent of lesions. It was not until 1964 that the first proven case of human infection by an alga was documented. Davies, Spencer and Wakelin (1964) not only isolated the achloric alga Prototheca segbwema from a cutaneous lesion of a rice farmer in Sierra Leone, but clearly demonstrated the organisms within the tissue. In their patient, the alga subsequently spread to the regional lymph-nodes (Davies and Wilkinson, 1967). The present paper reports the second instance of human infection by Prototheca in which the organism was cultured from and demonstrated in the lesions. These were ulcerating papules of the skin of the lower leg.
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