Although today, some 200 fungi are established as pathogenic for humans, causing a wide range of diverse mycoses (with an incidence measured in millions and a worldwide distribution), through the mid-nineteenth century, only two human diseases (or rather disease complexes) caused by fungi were generally recognized. These were ringworm and thrush, known since Roman times. Two important additions came at the end of the century: mycetoma of the foot (Carter 1874) and aspergillosis (Lucet 1897; Rénon 1897).

Fungi were the first pathogenic microorganisms to be recognized. Toward the end of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth, they had been shown experimentally to cause disease in plants and insects, and during the 1840s both ringworm and thrush were shown to be mycotic in origin. For a short period, fungi were blamed for causing many diseases. Cholera, for example, was attributed to fungi. But with the recognition of the major role played by bacteria (and later, viruses) in the etiology of human disease, fungi were neglected and medical mycology became very confused. It has been only since the 1930s, with the deployment of trained mycologists to work in conjunction with clinicians, that the identity of the pathogenic fungi has been clarified, and studies on their ecology have done much to elucidate epidemiological problems. In general, the geographic distribution of mycoses (which at first tended to coincide with that of medical mycologists) has been established, and the relation of mycoses to other human diseases has been brought into perspective.