Seven days after injuring the back of his right leg at a construction site, an 88-year-old man in Brazil arrived at an emergency department with something strange to report. His sweat had turned bluish, and it was leaving blue stains on his skin and fingernails. Wiping with alcohol removed the color, but it soon came back.
The injury had developed into cellulitis with an ulcer. When doctors cultured the wound, they found Pseudomonas stutzeri, a bacterium that the authors' literature review had not previously linked to colored sweat. The case was published in March in Cureus by Nathalia Madureira Ferraz and Danielli Oliveira da Costa Lino of Hospital de Messejana in Fortaleza. After targeted antibiotics, the blue discoloration improved markedly within 24 hours.
