CONCURRENT INFESTATION WITH A RARE MITE AND INFECTION WITH A COMMON DERMATOPHYTE

FORMAL reports of the finding of mites of the genus Dermatophagus on the human skin are very few and rather ancient. Through the kindness of Dr. Edward W. Baker,¹ of the Division of Insect Identification of the Department of Agriculture, who identified the mite in our case, we are able to give the following brief account of the literature, some of which we shall discuss in extenso below.

In the foreign literature there is the original communication of Bogdanoff,² dated 1864. Bogdanoff named the particular mite we are concerned with Dermatophagoides scheremetewskyi. Some time later it was found again on the skin, in Italy and redescribed. In the American literature there are an early report³ and related correspondence about it⁴ published in 1896. This last-mentioned case is curious in many respects and has surrounding it a somewhat vitiating dispute which we shall explain later.

For the