LATENT ACUTE RHEUMATIC CARDITIS AS DETERMINED AT AUTOPSY

Abstract

In routine autopsies at the Presbyterian Hospital, it has been occasionally observed that a patient dying of a nonrheumatic condition, and often with a history of never having suffered from rheumatic infection, nevertheless showed lesions in the heart indicative of this disease. A search through the literature failed to disclose any description of a series of such cases, although there were a few scattered references to this coincidence. Geipel¹recorded a case of contracted kidneys showing Aschoff bodies in the myocardium and an adherent pericardium. He also stated that Aschoff mentioned a case of Askanazy's in which scanty Aschoff bodies occurred although other signs of rheumatic infection were absent. Fraenkel²described three cases of verrucous endocarditis (in one of which the myocardium contained numerous Aschoff bodies) in which there was no history of rheumatic infection. Pappenheimer and Von Glahn³recorded two cases that had no history of