APPARENTLY Darling,1 in 1906, was the first to recognize adequately the entity of histoplasmosis in man. Parsons and Zarafonetis,2 in a review of 73 cases of histoplasmosis, found 10 cases of laryngeal involvement. Gammell and Breckenridge3 reported two cases of laryngeal histoplasmosis in 1949, and Roberts and Forman4 reported two more a year later.
Histoplasmosis is now recognized as a systemic disease which is characterized by its localized manifestations. It was not until World War II that extensive investigation in the United States seemed to show that this disease was, and is, more prevalent than formerly supposed. It has been pointed out that there are roughly two types of cases extant: first, the mild and transient and, second, the severe and fatal. The first is found more by accident accompanying some other condition, while the latter type will usually cause the patient to seek medical advice.