OBSERVATIONS

DURING the war years coccidioidomycosis ("Valley Fever, " "Desert Fever") has received rather intensive study as the result of the concentration of armed forces personnel in the endemic areas of California and the South-west. The present paper concerns itself with observations on 43 cases of primary coccidioidomycosis seen at the Station Hospital, Williams Air Field, Chandler, Arizona during 1946 and 1947. Since 1935 when Dickson and Gifford *•2 pointed out that infection with Coccidioides immitis may have a mild or primary form as well as the dis-seminated form originally described by Posadas3 in 1892, a wealth of infor-mation has accumulated on the subject. It does not serve the purposes of this paper, however, to attempt a review of these writings or to give more than a brief background of the etiology and pathogenesis of the disease. The causative agent of coccidioidomycosis is the fungus Coccidioides immitis. The fungus exists in two stages: The saprophytic stage ends in the formation of the chlamydospore which is the infective stage for man. Th