In the opinion of most students the majority of sarcoids are considered to be a form of tuberculosis. Most patients with sarcoids usually fail to react to Mantoux tests with tuberculin even in high concentrations. This lack of reaction to tuberculin in the usual dilutions is sometimes a helpful diagnostic criterion in the diagnosis of sarcoid. J. Jadassohn, Martenstein, W. Jadassohn and many others, including some American authors,1 explained this lack of reaction as a positive specific tuberculin anergy connected with the presence of anticutins in the blood serum and in the tissues of patients with sarcoids.
A new and different explanation for the pathogenesis of sarcoids and for the negative reaction to tuberculin in patients with these diseases was recently advanced by Mellon and Beinhauer.2 They reported that they were able to recover from one Negro patient with noncaseating tuberculosis a "partially acid-fast actinomycotic organism"2a and