PERIARTERITIS NODOSA —A CLINICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL REVIEW OF THE DISEASE

Abstract

INTRODUCTION A number of diseases which are to-day not uncommon and which are recognized clinically without much difficulty were at one time quite rare, owing largely to the fact that so little was known about them that they either escaped notice or were incorrectly diagnosed. It is quite possible that the rather rare but exceedingly interesting affection known as periarteritis nodosa is a case in point. Most of the cases have been observed in Germany, where the disease was first recognized and where the clinicians and pathologists have come to be familiar with it, whereas in this country, where the disease has attracted very little attention, only three cases have been reported up to the present time.1 Within the past year at the Presbyterian Hospital, we have had the exceptional opportunity of seeing two cases. Including these, the total number of reported cases now numbers but thirty-eight. Most of