May 20, 2025 • 9 mins
Step into the fascinating journey of athlete’s foot, medically known as tinea pedis, as we trace its origins from ancient Egypt’s papyrus scrolls to its explosive rise in the 20th century. Discover how urbanization, the use of closed footwear, and communal locker rooms turned this once-rare infection into a global sports epidemic. Learn about its impact during the World Wars, the introduction of antifungal treatments, and why athlete’s foot remains a challenge in gyms and pools today. Packed with stats, historical milestones, and surprising facts, this episode is a must-listen for sports history enthusiasts and anyone curious about the hidden stories behind common athletic struggles.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Did you know? On May twentieth, nineteen thirty, the University
of California dedicated fifteen one hundred dollars to research one
of the oldest and most stubborn rivalries in sports history.
And it's not a competitor that was on the field
but no, but instead a tiny fungus living on athletes feet.
(00:23):
From ancient Egyptian warriors to Olympic champions, athletes foot has
quietly plagued the greatest athletes for thousands of years. And
today we're going to dive into the surprising history of
this itchy, persistent folk and how it shaped the sports culture, medicine,
and even war time battles. Going into the history of
(00:45):
athletes foot. So let's go. Welcome to Daily Sports History.
I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learned more
about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge as you dive
into the history of athleteses foot. So what is athlete's foot?
(01:10):
Athlete's foot is d n pidis is its technical name.
No one really calls it that. It's all athletes foot
and it's caused by different types of fun guy. And
there's different species of these fun guy. You can have
different kinds of athletes foot. I'm not going to tell
you these ones because they are too longer words and
I can't say them. I just remember athletes foot is
a fun guy. It thrives in warm, moist environments, such
(01:33):
as shoes that get really sweaty. It can be transferred
really easily from direct skin contact from another person. It's
mainly transmitted in locker rooms, pool shower, places where you're
not usually wearing shoes. And it can be transferred from
contact on the floor on towels, socks, shoes, all these
different kinds of things. And you probably heard this when
(01:56):
if you went to college, that you're always told to
wear flip flops in the showers. This is the reason.
It wasn't because it was slippery in there and you
didn't want to fall down. No, it was because you
didn't want to contract athletes foot. But the condition is
not limited to athletes. It actually went from athletes to soldiers,
to anybody, anybody going through a public shower, anyone wearing
tight shoes, not changing their socks daily. It really could
(02:18):
go to anyone. There was not limited to just one person.
Now it's shown to be higher in men, but that's
mainly because men at the time and even kind of
to this day. Are the ones usually using these showers,
using these locker rooms, these facilities where it's transferred more
than women. Women do get it. Women do get to
transfer the same similar ways, and it can go from
(02:38):
men to women, but it's usually just higher population men,
and roughly fifteen percent of the population has athletes foot,
so likely you know someone who's dealing with athletes foot
right now. And the symptoms are just dry, flaky skin,
itchy redness, and kind of a pain when you walk
because it's it's rough. It's just kind of irritant. In
(02:59):
some of your cases, it can cause bleeding, blistering, intense burning,
cracking of the skin, but in most cases it can
actually go away on itself or use an anti fungal
cream that usually takes two to six weeks for it
to disappear, and most of these fungal creams are over
the counter. It's become thing that it's growing even more
that anti fungal athletes foot cream is almost a two
(03:22):
billion dollar industry today. So the first documented case that
we have of something like athleteses foot happened in ancient Egypt.
Describing the similar symptoms to what athletes foot is a
day itching scaling redness, and Egyptian remedies were to use
herbal treatments, but we have no idea if these treatments
actually worked back then. They may have, we just don't know.
(03:45):
So most Egyptians were barefoot. It was a barefoot lifestyle.
Occasionally the upper elite wore sandals, but most of all
it went barefoot, which limited the spread of athletes as
the fungus of athletes foot likes to thrive in warm,
moist places and in closed environments, which was not common
in open sandal barefoot areas. But it was warm and hot,
(04:06):
so they did what a lot and a lot of
the crevices did start to get the athletes folk, and
it's likely that caveman and early humans encountered the same thing,
as they would cover their feet a lot when it
was cold and would experience similar situations. Now, the impact
was not deadly, but having athletes's foot would hinder issues
for hunters and labors when they were in serious situations
(04:26):
and needed to walk and run away very quickly for
a survival situation, and may have caused them to be
slower or quicker to adapt to the situation, so it
could have been a deadly type of thing. Now, athlete's
foot popped up and was around throughout every century, but
in the early nineteen hundreds it's when it really took
(04:46):
its place and really became a widespread health issue. See
with the urbanization of the nineteen hundreds in the industrial age,
it meant more people were living closer together, it meant
and there was more communal bathrooms, facilities, swimming pools, locker rooms,
and shoes became more prevalent, which is a hot spot
for athletes foot, And in nineteen oh eight was the
first medical description by Arthur Whitfield of what athletes foot was,
(05:12):
and in nineteen sixteen a documented outbreak among World War
One soldiers due to the damp environment of the trenches
being a hotbed for the fungal to spread, and athletes
foot is easily spread. But it's not till nineteen twenty
when we first hear the term athletes foot appear in print,
popularized by doctor Charles Papst who noted that it was
(05:35):
prevalent among athletes using communal facilities like locker rooms, and
by that time, nearly ten million Americans were estimated to
have athletes foot, prompting a public concern. You remember this
was early times. We weren't really sure what everything was
in the medical field, so we were all learning at
the same time. And the University of California really took
(05:56):
this challenge on and they were actually given a grant
of fifteen hundred dollars roughly thirty thousand dollars to day
to really study athletes foot, and they were able to
find that fifty three percent of incoming freshmen to the
university had athletes foot, and by the year's end that
had jumped to seventy eight percent, showing that it was
quickly growing and highly contagious. And by the nineteen thirties
(06:19):
this had grown among high society elite as they had
more access to pools, colleges, and athletic clubs, so it
wasn't thought of as a poor man's condition. Instead, it
was thought of as an elite condition. Ooh, you have
athletes foot, you must be fancy. And it wasn't just athletes.
Soldiers had the issue continuously and even into World War II,
(06:40):
where British troops actually tend to get it more because
they had better hygiene. They they actually frequently showered and
changed their shocks more often, allowing the poors in their
feet to be open to getting infected easier. And almost
eighty percent of soldiers in the Southeast Asia area had
athletes foot from the British sold and for the soldiers,
(07:01):
again it was similar to the cavemen and the ancient
times with athletes foot was not deadly, but it was debilitating,
and a soldier focused on his feet itching and it
being uncomfortable walk and run may be limited in what
they can do in battle. They may be half a
stef slower may react, slower, may be distracted more easily,
and that can be deadly in these situations where it's
(07:23):
life or death. And this condition was so common by
the time the nineteen thirty two Los Angeles Olympics happened,
they actually had sanitizing foot baths introduced for all the
athletes to limit the spread going on during the games.
And at the time doctors didn't know if it was
spreading to other things because another fungal infection that's common
(07:43):
also is jockage, which is very similar to athletes foot
but spread less often. But we were all learning about
this stuff and learning at a different paces and learning
exactly what it was, so athletes. Foot is a bad
rap for athletes because it's not just athletes, it's everyone
that has it. But it really kind of focuses on
athletes because a lot of athletes do get it. We're
wearing shoes, we're sweating and shoes, and we're dealing with
(08:06):
other people that could have it. It's a very common occurrence,
but it's not a deadly thing. It's just a nuisance
kind of thing. But it can be very nuisance. But
if you've ever had it, you understand, like the itching
is annoying, the flaking is annoying, It looks bad. It's
not something we ever want to have, but we all
have to deal with it, and it's got a long
history of being around for ages. But it's interesting that
(08:29):
sports has its own disease. And there's actually some other
diseases we might cover, such as staff and mursa that
are associated with athletes as well, that we might cover
on another episode. And I want to thank you for
listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this,
please make sure you are subscribed or follow wherever you're listening.
(08:49):
That way you do not miss an episode and come
back tomorrow for more daily sports history, nap and taking
Did you know? On May twentieth, nineteen thirty, the University
of California dedicated fifteen one hundred dollars to research one
of the oldest and most stubborn rivalries in sports history.
And it's not a competitor that was on the field
but no, but instead a tiny fungus living on athletes feet.
(00:23):
From ancient Egyptian warriors to Olympic champions, athletes foot has
quietly plagued the greatest athletes for thousands of years. And
today we're going to dive into the surprising history of
this itchy, persistent folk and how it shaped the sports culture, medicine,
and even war time battles. Going into the history of
(00:45):
athletes foot. So let's go. Welcome to Daily Sports History.
I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learned more
about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge as you dive
into the history of athleteses foot. So what is athlete's foot?
(01:10):
Athlete's foot is d n pidis is its technical name.
No one really calls it that. It's all athletes foot
and it's caused by different types of fun guy. And
there's different species of these fun guy. You can have
different kinds of athletes foot. I'm not going to tell
you these ones because they are too longer words and
I can't say them. I just remember athletes foot is
a fun guy. It thrives in warm, moist environments, such
(01:33):
as shoes that get really sweaty. It can be transferred
really easily from direct skin contact from another person. It's
mainly transmitted in locker rooms, pool shower, places where you're
not usually wearing shoes. And it can be transferred from
contact on the floor on towels, socks, shoes, all these
different kinds of things. And you probably heard this when
(01:56):
if you went to college, that you're always told to
wear flip flops in the showers. This is the reason.
It wasn't because it was slippery in there and you
didn't want to fall down. No, it was because you
didn't want to contract athletes foot. But the condition is
not limited to athletes. It actually went from athletes to soldiers,
to anybody, anybody going through a public shower, anyone wearing
tight shoes, not changing their socks daily. It really could
(02:18):
go to anyone. There was not limited to just one person.
Now it's shown to be higher in men, but that's
mainly because men at the time and even kind of
to this day. Are the ones usually using these showers,
using these locker rooms, these facilities where it's transferred more
than women. Women do get it. Women do get to
transfer the same similar ways, and it can go from
(02:38):
men to women, but it's usually just higher population men,
and roughly fifteen percent of the population has athletes foot,
so likely you know someone who's dealing with athletes foot
right now. And the symptoms are just dry, flaky skin,
itchy redness, and kind of a pain when you walk
because it's it's rough. It's just kind of irritant. In
(02:59):
some of your cases, it can cause bleeding, blistering, intense burning,
cracking of the skin, but in most cases it can
actually go away on itself or use an anti fungal
cream that usually takes two to six weeks for it
to disappear, and most of these fungal creams are over
the counter. It's become thing that it's growing even more
that anti fungal athletes foot cream is almost a two
(03:22):
billion dollar industry today. So the first documented case that
we have of something like athleteses foot happened in ancient Egypt.
Describing the similar symptoms to what athletes foot is a
day itching scaling redness, and Egyptian remedies were to use
herbal treatments, but we have no idea if these treatments
actually worked back then. They may have, we just don't know.
(03:45):
So most Egyptians were barefoot. It was a barefoot lifestyle.
Occasionally the upper elite wore sandals, but most of all
it went barefoot, which limited the spread of athletes as
the fungus of athletes foot likes to thrive in warm,
moist places and in closed environments, which was not common
in open sandal barefoot areas. But it was warm and hot,
(04:06):
so they did what a lot and a lot of
the crevices did start to get the athletes folk, and
it's likely that caveman and early humans encountered the same thing,
as they would cover their feet a lot when it
was cold and would experience similar situations. Now, the impact
was not deadly, but having athletes's foot would hinder issues
for hunters and labors when they were in serious situations
(04:26):
and needed to walk and run away very quickly for
a survival situation, and may have caused them to be
slower or quicker to adapt to the situation, so it
could have been a deadly type of thing. Now, athlete's
foot popped up and was around throughout every century, but
in the early nineteen hundreds it's when it really took
(04:46):
its place and really became a widespread health issue. See
with the urbanization of the nineteen hundreds in the industrial age,
it meant more people were living closer together, it meant
and there was more communal bathrooms, facilities, swimming pools, locker rooms,
and shoes became more prevalent, which is a hot spot
for athletes foot, And in nineteen oh eight was the
first medical description by Arthur Whitfield of what athletes foot was,
(05:12):
and in nineteen sixteen a documented outbreak among World War
One soldiers due to the damp environment of the trenches
being a hotbed for the fungal to spread, and athletes
foot is easily spread. But it's not till nineteen twenty
when we first hear the term athletes foot appear in print,
popularized by doctor Charles Papst who noted that it was
(05:35):
prevalent among athletes using communal facilities like locker rooms, and
by that time, nearly ten million Americans were estimated to
have athletes foot, prompting a public concern. You remember this
was early times. We weren't really sure what everything was
in the medical field, so we were all learning at
the same time. And the University of California really took
(05:56):
this challenge on and they were actually given a grant
of fifteen hundred dollars roughly thirty thousand dollars to day
to really study athletes foot, and they were able to
find that fifty three percent of incoming freshmen to the
university had athletes foot, and by the year's end that
had jumped to seventy eight percent, showing that it was
quickly growing and highly contagious. And by the nineteen thirties
(06:19):
this had grown among high society elite as they had
more access to pools, colleges, and athletic clubs, so it
wasn't thought of as a poor man's condition. Instead, it
was thought of as an elite condition. Ooh, you have
athletes foot, you must be fancy. And it wasn't just athletes.
Soldiers had the issue continuously and even into World War II,
(06:40):
where British troops actually tend to get it more because
they had better hygiene. They they actually frequently showered and
changed their shocks more often, allowing the poors in their
feet to be open to getting infected easier. And almost
eighty percent of soldiers in the Southeast Asia area had
athletes foot from the British sold and for the soldiers,
(07:01):
again it was similar to the cavemen and the ancient
times with athletes foot was not deadly, but it was debilitating,
and a soldier focused on his feet itching and it
being uncomfortable walk and run may be limited in what
they can do in battle. They may be half a
stef slower may react, slower, may be distracted more easily,
and that can be deadly in these situations where it's
(07:23):
life or death. And this condition was so common by
the time the nineteen thirty two Los Angeles Olympics happened,
they actually had sanitizing foot baths introduced for all the
athletes to limit the spread going on during the games.
And at the time doctors didn't know if it was
spreading to other things because another fungal infection that's common
(07:43):
also is jockage, which is very similar to athletes foot
but spread less often. But we were all learning about
this stuff and learning at a different paces and learning
exactly what it was, so athletes. Foot is a bad
rap for athletes because it's not just athletes, it's everyone
that has it. But it really kind of focuses on
athletes because a lot of athletes do get it. We're
wearing shoes, we're sweating and shoes, and we're dealing with
(08:06):
other people that could have it. It's a very common occurrence,
but it's not a deadly thing. It's just a nuisance
kind of thing. But it can be very nuisance. But
if you've ever had it, you understand, like the itching
is annoying, the flaking is annoying, It looks bad. It's
not something we ever want to have, but we all
have to deal with it, and it's got a long
history of being around for ages. But it's interesting that
(08:29):
sports has its own disease. And there's actually some other
diseases we might cover, such as staff and mursa that
are associated with athletes as well, that we might cover
on another episode. And I want to thank you for
listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this,
please make sure you are subscribed or follow wherever you're listening.
(08:49):
That way you do not miss an episode and come
back tomorrow for more daily sports history, nap and taking
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