Pinto

Pinto. The remarkable brown, black and blue spots of discoloration of the whole body met with endemically in Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, and known under the name of "pinto" or "mal de los pintos," were first claimed by Gastambide (Presse med. Beige, 1881, Nos. 33-41) as due to the presence of a vegetable parasite, whose spores and even mycelial filaments may be detected among the deeper rows of cells of the rete mucosum. The disease appears to be one of the many forms of morbus miseriae; but it is contagious, and is sometimes seen in the well-to-do. In some villages of the western districts of Tabasco (Mexico) it has been estimated that 9% of the inhabitants suffer from the pinto; M'Clellan says that in 1826 in the City of Mexico he saw a whole regiment of "pintados."