TINEA NODOSA

981

TINEA NODOSA

Under this term Cheadle and Morris¹ described an affection of the
hairs of the bearded parts observed in a young man, characterized by
irregular nodular incrustations along or around the hair-shaft, of a dull
brown or dark-brown color. Crocker² also met with a similar case, in
which it was limited to one side of the mustache; and that described by
Thin,³ involving the mustache hairs, was possibly a similar or allied affec­
tion, although the coating was somewhat continuous and free from nodose
elevations. The lower part of the hair is usually free, the root remaining
healthy and unaffected. The incrustation is found due to a fungus made
up of spores somewhat smaller than those observed in ringworm. The
affected hairs are rendered somewhat brittle and inelastic, and tend to
break off or split up, although, as a rule, the fungus growth does not in­
vade the hair substance.

In this connection, as bearing trifling resemblance to slight conditions
of tinea nodosa, the small, narrow, ring-like sheath of sebaceous and
epithelial matter sometimes carried up from the follicle outlet by the
growth of the hair can be referred to. It is only occasionally observed
and usually in association with moderate seborrhea. Examined hastily
and carelessly, these formations might also be mistaken for nits. Allied
to this, too, is doubtless the case described by Grindon,⁴ in which in a
few limited regions of the scalp, in which the skin was slightly red and
scaly, many of the hairs presented “along their length peculiar beaded
concretions, grayish white in color, and to the casual glance closely simu­
lating the ova of pediculi, under low power looking like casts of inspissated
sebum three to five times the diameter of the shaft, which they com­
pletely inclosed like a sleeve.” A careful investigation showed the affec­
tion “to consist of an inflammation of the hair-follicle characterized
by extrusion of the cells of a portion of the root-sheath proper en masse,
carried up with the growth of the hair.” It was accompanied by a slight
redness about the follicular orifice, and was chronic in character. Bei-
gel⁵ had previously referred to this condition. This latter observer
considered that a hyperplastic action, consequent on irritation or in­
flammation, exists in the sheaths of the hair-roots, producing an abnormal
number of cells which are glued together and adhere to the cuticle of the
hair while passing through the hair-sac

Treatment of tinea nodosa consists in frequent shaving or clipping
and the application of a mild parasiticide.

¹ Cheadle and Morris, Lancet, 1879, i, p. 190 (with illustration); Giovannini’s dis­
ease (Archiv, 1887, vol. xiv, p. 1049—with illustrations and some references), was
apparently a similar or allied condition.

² Crocker, Diseases of the Skin.

³ Thin, Lancet, 1882, ii, p. 742 (with illustration); abs. in Jour. Cutan. Dis., 1883,
p. 188.

⁴ Grindon, “A Peculiar Affection of the Hair-follicles,” Jour. Cutan. Dis., 1897,
p. 256 (with illustration).

⁵ Beigel, The Human Hair, 1869, p. 125 (with illustration almost exactly like the
condition pictured by Grindon).

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