Word: fever
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...killer of U.S. children is rheumatic fever. It is not only one of the biggest mysteries in medical science; it is one of the most neglected. Last week one of the most thorough campaigns yet mapped against the disease got under way at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. Directing the work were two well-matched experts: Dr. Francis Schwentker, 42, new head of the Hopkins pediatric staff who has just finished eight years of research on strep infections, and Dr. Helen Taussig, 48, head of the Hopkins Children's Heart Clinic and a famed authority on "blue babies...
Every year rheumatic fever kills far more children than polio. Dramatic publicity has led the public to chip in over $94 per polio patient for research and treatment, but for every rheumatic fever victim, only 3? has been spent. For such work as the new Hopkins program, 146 U.S. insurance companies recently set up a joint research fund. Said Dr. Schwentker last week: "They have begun to realize that a crippled heart is worse than a withered...
...insidious disease. In its first stage it looks like an ordinary respiratory infection, perhaps a mere sore throat, and is often overlooked or mistaken for another disease. Recent research has shown that the infection is usually group A streptococcus (but not streptococcus of other groups), and occasionally scarlet fever...
...second stage follows two to six weeks later. Typical symptoms: swollen joints, fever, rheumatic nodules at the elbow, knee and other joints. "When it is typical, the disease is easy to diagnose," says Dr. Schwentker, "but the big majority of cases are not typical. The patient may suffer from vague, fleeting pains in the joints and have a low fever." Mistakes in diagnosis are again common until the heart's valves and blood vessels become inflamed...
Look to the Family. While Dr. Schwentker studies his rabbits, Dr. Taussig will continue her clinical work with child victims of the disease. She will also study the sociological factors which seem to be important in the spread of rheumatic fever. It tends to run in families, for example, and is far commoner in big cities than in the country, most often hits poor and underprivileged children...