Need layman explanation macklon at acs.ucalgary.ca Mon Sep 12
12:21:15 EST 1994 In article <34spsn$aa6 at news.tamu.edu>,
muttiah at tamu.edu (Ranjan Muttiah) > I need a layman's
explanation of why fungi often attack > the surface of an
organism (plants or animals both seem > afflicted the same way)
say compared to bacteria that > attack organs deep in the body
and the surface of the body. My answer is freely borrowed from
the introductory chapter of "Medical Mycology - The Pathogenic
Fungi and The Pathogenic Actinomycetes", by J.W. Rippon, and
published by the W.B. Saunders Company. Apologies to the Most
fungi, with the exception of a few dermatophytes, are not
dependant on pathogenicity to ensure the propagation of the
species. Fungi that can cause disease do so due to some special
metabolic trait that allows survival inside the body under what
are, especially for the fungi, adverse conditions - elevated
temp., reduced redox, and host defences. Diseases such as
histoplasmosis, blastomycosis and cocidiodomyc