Coccidioidomycosis: What a long strange trip it's been

The recorded history of coccidioidomycosis began in 1892 with the report of the illness of Domingo Escurra by Alejandro Posadas followed by a description of the first North American cases by Rixford and Gilchrist. Originally considered a protozoan, William Ophüls determined that Coccidioides was a fungus and that the lungs were the apparent initial site of infection. During the 1930s, both Gifford and Dickson determined that a self-limited illness, Valley Fever, was caused by the same fungus that caused the often fatal coccidioidal granuloma. Charles Smith, over a period of approximately 2 decades, comprehensively described the clinical and geographic epidemiology of coccidioidomycosis in California. Demosthenes Pappagianis continued this work after Smith's death. In 1957, one year before Marshall Fiese published his masterful monograph on coccidioidomycosis, the use of the first effective agent for the therapy of coccidioidomycosis, amphotericin B, was reported. This was followed by descriptions of its appropriate clinical use by William Winn and by Hans Einstein, among others. The development of the much less toxic azole antifungal agents greatly simplified therapy in many cases, but much of the management of patients with coccidioidomycosis still relies more on art than science. The search for the “Holy Grail” - a vaccine capable of preventing this disease-continues.