Futile Fool Baths

The slosh of athletes' feet through prophylactic baths in U.S. clubs, schools, gymnasiums, swimming pools, and above all in Army camps, is not only "illogical and probably serves no useful purpose but is potentially harmful." This radical reversal of medical teaching comes from three expert dermatologists (Drs. Marion Sulzberger and Rudolf Baer of New York City's Montefiore Hospital and Dr. Rudolph Hecht of the University of Illinois). It is based on their observations of the last decade, as confirmed by 88 other U.S. skin specialists.

Athlete's foot, the three doctors write in the Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology, develops not from exposure to new germs but from lowering of the individual's resistance to the germs he almost always carries on his own feet--no matter how often he bathes them in chemicals. Athlete's foot spores are so omnipresent, the contagion so inescapable, that the disease itself can be called "rarely, if ever, 'contagious' " in the sense that one individual transmits it directly to another.

Nevertheless, many sufferers "are so imbued with the idea of the contagiousness . . . that they have veritable phobias and are constantly scrubbing, using strong soaps, disinfectants, germicides and patent remedies on themselves, on their families and on all objects and utensils. . . . Once they are convinced that they are not 'unclean,' not a menace to themselves and to others, patients with superficial ringworm [athlete's foot] infections experience great psychic relief." A real cure of athlete's foot, the doctors add, often depends on eliminating the use of skin-damaging chemicals.

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