Madura Foot and Other Mycetomas

Abstract

In the middle of the nineteenth century, physicians, especially in India, recognized a number of somewhat similar clinical conditions, all of which were associated with sinuses discharging pus in which various colored granules could be detected. Initially, it was believed that all these grains consisted of aggregates of fungi, and the term mycetoma came into being. Later, it was discovered that of the many different organisms involved some were true fungi (eumycetes) while others, the actinomycetes, are now considered to be intermediate between fungi and bacteria. These organisms infect the subcutaneous tissue and produce a number of slightly different clinical appearances, including Madura foot, which was described, not for the first time, in 1842 in the Madurai Dispensary Reports in the Indian Army Medical Reports. If any eponymous name is to be used, the condition should by rights be called the Madurai foot, but it is probably too late to alter an established misnomer.