With the advent of antibiotic agents in recent years, certain of the previously regarded major infectious diseases have diminished in relative clinical importance. Moreover, diseases that were rare or unrecognized previously are receiving more attention. Of the latter group, coccidioidomycosis is representative of this newly directed attention to diseases of mycotic origin.
This disease was first described, in 1892, by Wernicke.1 He described the lesions as "granulation tissue tumors" and classified the positive parasite as a protozoan. The disease exists clinically in three principal forms,2 viz., (1) the primary pulmonary type, (2) the primary cutaneous type, and (3) the progressive granulomatous type. The last two types are sometimes described clinically as the progressive granulocutaneous type. It is generalized and carries a high mortality. Dickson first suggested the general term coccidioidomycosis to include the various clinical forms of the disease.3
PATHOGENESIS
It was not until 1937 that Dickson