Favus
| Favid | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| An infant with favid, in Kharah, Akhnoor District, Jammu & Kashmir, India. | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | infectious disease |
| ICD-10 | B35.0 (ILDS B35.030) |
| ICD-9-CM | 110.9 |
| DiseasesDB | 32462 |
| eMedicine | article/1090828 |
| MeSH | D014007 |
Favid (of "favus" Latin for "honeycomb" is a disease usually affecting the scalp, but occurring occasionally on any part of the skin, and even at times on mucous membranes.
The word “Favid” is more used than French word “favus”, which is close to the Latin etymology.
The uncomplicated appearance is that of a number of yellowish, circular, cup-shaped crusts (scutula) grouped in patches like a piece of honeycomb, each about the size of a split pea, with a hair projecting in the center. These increase in size and become crusted over, so that the characteristic lesion can only be seen round the edge of the scab. A mousy odour is often present. Growth continues to take place for several months, when scab and scutulum come away, leaving a shining bare patch destitute of hair. The disease is essentially chronic, lasting from ten to twenty years. It is caused by the growth of a fungus, and pathologically is the reaction of the tissues to the growth.
The fungus was named after a microscopic structure termed "achorion" (a term not used in modern science), seen in scrapings of infected skin, which consists of slender, mycelial threads matted together, bearing oval, nucleated fungal substrate-arthroconidia either free or jointed. This structure is currently called "scutula." The fungus itself is now called Trichophyton schoenleinii.
During initial infection, the fungal spores would appear to enter through the unbroken cutaneous surface, and to germinate mostly in and around the hair follicle and sometimes in the shaft of the hair.
It was the first disease in which a fungus was discovered by J. L. Schönlein in 1839; the discovery was published in a brief note of twenty lines in Millers Archive for that year (p. 82), the fungus having been subsequently named by Robert Remak; Achorion schoenleinii after its discoverer.
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