REVIEW AND APPRAISAL OF PRESENT KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

Abstract

IT WOULD require a remarkable gift for imparting knowledge to be able to report briefly everything that has been learned and everything that has been said about the many intricacies of lupus erythematosus. I fear that in the past glib terms have glossed over ignorance, or at best superficial knowledge of some of the processes that underlie the pathogenesis of this protean disease. This tendency is exemplified by the careless use of such terms as "collagen disease" and "fibrinoid degeneration" and by explaining away a finding, the cause of which is obscure, by aligning it with an allergic manifestation. Historically, knowledge about lupus erythematosus has been acquired by the shrewd observations of clinicians and the interest of pathologists. The morphology of the skin lesions was soon learned, the symptoms of the disease and the cruder laboratory findings have been observed with monotonous regularity, but the real advances have come from