ACUTE, SUBACUTE AND CHRONIC ISOLATED MYOCARDITIS

Abstract

Acute isolated myocarditis is a rare form of heart disease, first clearly described by Fiedler in 1889. In the American literature attention was first called to this entity in 1929 by Scott and Saphir¹ in their report of two cases. The latter paper contains bibliographic references to the thirty-six cases previously recorded. Search of the literature since 1929 reveals reports of at least ten other cases in which the histologic pictures correspond to that of acute isolated myocarditis (one each by Gallavardin and Gravier,² Legrand and Nayrac,³ Mazzeo,⁴ De La Chapelle and Graef,⁵ Bailey and Andersen,⁶ Boikan,⁷ Bessem and Elsbach,⁸ Maxwell and Barrett,⁹ Miller¹⁰ and Maslow and Lederer¹¹). Boikan's case is described under the title "Myocarditis Perniciosa"; Miller's under the term "Granulomatous Myocarditis." An exact distinction between the advanced stages of myocarditis thus described and the various grades of change which may be noted in the