Letters to the editor

Abstract

Extract

Sir,—It appears that Cordes and his colleagues (1967) have completely missed the point of my recent letter to this Journal (Smith, 1967). I merely attempted to indicate what species of fungi are found in various clinical condition—not to give the incidence or importance of fungal diseases in New Zealand. For example, I was not giving the incidence of ringworm in the cat population or relating how many skin lesions in cats are, in fact, due to fungi, but simply stating the fact that Microsporum canis was the only dermatophyte recovered from confirmed ringworms. We all know that Trichophyton verrucosum is the “common” cause of cow ringworm, but at present no reliable published figures are available to confirm this. For this reason, I produced my table hoping that other institutions would follow suit.