The ringworm family includes tinea tonsurans, tinea sycosis, tinea circinata and an affection of the nails known as onychomycosis. These names are of ancient origin, and, from a scientific standpoint, are not free from objection. Medical writers from the time of Celsus to the present have endeavored to improve the nomenclature of the mycotic group, hence the confusion experienced in attempting their study. In 1842-4 Gruby contributed a series of observations on ringworm of the scalp to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in which he described a fungus found in the hairs and scales of the affected region. Unfortunately for science, he employed the term ''porrigo decalvans," which Willan and, subsequently, Bateman used synonymously with alopecia areata, although Gruby's description clearly refers to ringworm.1 Strange as it now seems, from this confusion of names he was accredited with having discovered a parasite in alopecia areata, which other observers