Erysipeloid in the fingers (before treatment). Erysipeloid in the fingers of a female farmer, before and immediately after successful therapy with oral penicillin-V. The causative agent is Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, a bacterium transmitted, for example, by handling fish, poultry or sheep and causing many infections in swine. Here, E. rhusiopathiae was confirmed by successful culture from a biopsy specimen from an affected finger. Even, if the disease is self-limited, the risk of cardiac infection, for example, is a good reason for antibiotic therapy.
Picture: Raimo Suhonen
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