A clinical study of actinomycosis.

Abstract

Any effort to correlate and publish present-day clinical knowledge of actinomycosis would result obviously in a repetition of medical history. It is not my intention, therefore, to give a course on this subject. I wish only to report 4 interesting patients, 2 with enlarged parotid glands, the other 2 with solitary masses in the neck—all the result of Actinomyces bovis. Although 55% of all actinomycotic lesions are located in the head and neck, there has been scant reference to this disease in otolaryngologic literature during the past decade. It seems, therefore, that a study of these cases might be of special interest to the otolaryngologist at this time. <h3>Etiology</h3> The ray fungus, Actinomyces bovis, is a Gram-positive anaerobic club-shaped fungus that is grown with some difficulty even under ideal laboratory conditions. Consequently, it is not surprising that it was not until 1878 that J. Israel cultured it from a human