CHAPTER XXXIII
PINTA
General Considerations
This is a parasitic skin affection due to various species of fungi. It is only found in the tropical portion of the new world, and is especially prevalent in Colombia, where it has been estimated 4% of the population have the disease. It is also found in Mexico, Central America and some of the other countries of South America as well as Colombia.
Other names for the disease are caraate and mal de los pintos. At first it was thought that the different colors shown by the eruption were due to varying depths of the proliferating fungi in the skin layers but it is now known that the explanation is in a variety of species in the different types of pinta.
The pure violet pinta is caused by Aspergillus pictor while the grayish-violet one is due to Penicillium montoyai. A species of Monilia causes the white variety and different species of Montoyella a black and a red variety respectively. The genus Montoyella is stated by Castellani to have both slender and thick mycelial threads, from the thicker of which spring delicate hyphae terminating in pear-shaped conidia.
Material scraped from the lesions and mounted in liquor potassae shows the fructification terminations characteristic of Aspergillus or Penicillium in the violet or gray-violet varieties while the white, black and red ones only show mycelial threads and scattered spores. These pinta species of fungi can be cultivated on Sabouraud’s medium.
Montoya thinks that the pinta fungi lead a saprophytic existence in the waters of mines or other places with a constant high temperature, and states that he has obtained pure cultures from such sources.
Symptomatology
The spots of the eruption are generally first noted on the hands or face and are rather rough, dry and only slightly raised. Itching is quite marked and the scratching probably is largely responsible for the gradual spread of the affection over the body generally.