The diagnosis of early rheumatic carditis usually depends upon the detection of murmurs produced by acute valvulitis. It may be difficult to evaluate clinically the significance of certain murmurs occurring in patients with rheumatic fever, though the development of a loud apical pansystolic murmur in a patient already under observation usually presents no diagnostic problem. More frequently a ...

Rheumatism in childhood has been calculated by Dr. Gordon Pugh1 in a report to the Metropolitan Asylums Board as being " eventually responsible for one-twenty-fourth of all deaths." It is a good many years since (in 1910) I first tried the effect of prolonged rest in bed for a child in a first attack of rheumatic fever. There was evidence of carditis, for which he stayed in bed for close on a y...

ALTHOUGH adrenocortical steroid therapy has been available for 14 years, its value in acute rheumatic fever still remains controversial. The Cooperative Study 1 failed to demonstrate any significant difference between aspirin and steroids with regard to their effect on residual heart disease. On the other hand, extensive data collected at the House of the Good Samaritan 2 have shown that steroi...

ALTHOUGH adrenocortical steroid therapy has been available for 14 years, its value in acute rheumatic fever still remains controversial. The Cooperative Study 1 failed to demonstrate any significant difference between aspirin and steroids with regard to their effect on residual heart disease. On the other hand, extensive data collected at the House of the Good Samaritan 2 have shown that steroi...