The rationale of the therapy of tinea capitis with estrogens is based on an observation of the tendency toward spontaneous cure at puberty and the rarity of the disease in adults. Physiologic evidence of estrogen production before puberty is insignificant, and the development of the adult type of cell in the vagina in children has been repeatedly demonstrated as the result of estrogenic therapy. These considerations prompted the organization of a clinic for ringworm of the scalp in July 1940 at the Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital to determine the effect of estrogen therapy on tinea capitis.
The multiplicity of drugs and procedures used heretofore in the treatment of tinea capitis has precluded, in general, the use of any single routine therapeutic procedure. Epilation has perhaps been the most uniform method of treatment, and even this has subjected children to hazardous methods, such as the use of thallium acetate or