Experimental Ringworm in Guinea Pigs: Oral Treatment with Griseofulvin

Abstract

IN an effort to find a satisfactory agent for the topical treatment of ringworm and other superficial mycoses, many substances, including antibiotics, have been investigated in the past. Although high anti-fungal activity has often been demonstrated by tests in vitro, such compounds have given disappointing clinical results when applied topically, and it is now recognized that this is probably due to the inability of such substances to penetrate the keratin of skin, hair and nails to the site of dermatophyte activity. For this reason it has often been suggested that the eventual curative agent will be administered systemically. Wilson¹ states that “the ideal anti-fungal drug even for superficial mycoses would seem to be one which could be safely administered internally in amounts sufficient to endow the cells eventually destined to produce keratin with the power to resist fungi completely, this power persisting as they become keratinized, and the drug thus exerting its effects from within outward”.