The Factor of Infection in the Rheumatic State.

Abstract

The author of this monograph has used a most apt and inclusive term for what physicians have been in the habit of calling rheumatic fever. He emphasizes the wide variety of visceral and peripheral manifestations, functional, as well as organic disturbances, and the variations in severity from the mildest forms which escape their true valuation to the severe and fulminating types with hyperpyrexia, which are being less frequently seen today. His ideas on the subject show that he has had a wide experience with the disease. The conclusion that there is no demonstrable relationship between rheumatic fever and bacterial endocarditis except that incidental to other types of valvular disease does not agree with the experience of others. The annual and seasonal variations and incidence are well illustrated by many cases closely followed. There is ample demonstration that the incidence as well as the virulence of the disease follows the incidence