In Finland in the 1970s, the mean annual incidence of measles was 366 per 100,000, that of mumps was 240 per 100,000, and that of rubella was 104 per 100,000. In the Finnish population of 5 million, large epidemics caused hundreds of hospitalizations and ...

Neurofibromatosis type 1, or von Recklinghausen's disease, is one of the most common autosomal dominant disorders, with an incidence of approximately 1 in 3500. The main clinical features of the disease are cafe au lait spots, cutaneous neurofibromas, and ...

Many skin disorders are characterized by a mosaic pattern, often with alternating stripes of affected and unaffected skin. These stripes are referred to as lines of Blaschko¹. They do not follow the vascular, neural, or lymphatic structures of the skin, ...

Acute decreases in renal function induced by the administration of radiocontrast agents are an important cause of hospital-acquired renal insufficiency, which contributes to morbidity and mortality during hospitalization and to the incidence of chronic ...

Figure 1. Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Probably the most common cause of community-acquired pneumonia, the commensal pathogen Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of a group of cell-associated organisms that are the bane of tissue culturists (scanning electron ...

“Crack” cocaine, an addictive, smokable form of cocaine, gained widespread use in many urban neighborhoods in the United States in the mid-1980s, particularly among poor young adults who were members of minority groups¹–⁶. A recent national household ...

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is a chronic disorder that results from autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Much has been learned during the past decade about the underlying genetics, natural history, and ...

Presentation of Case

A 19-year-old man was admitted to the hospital on New Year's Day because of ascending paresthesias, progressive weakness of the legs, and a rash.

He had been well until 10 days earlier, when a sore throat, productive cough, sweats, ...

The successful eradication of smallpox from the world in 1977, the dramatic progress now being achieved toward the global eradication of poliomyelitis by the year 2000, and the increasing number of reports of the interruption of indigenous measles ...

Several genetic diseases can have the clinical features of either a generalized condition or a disorder with an alternating pattern of affected and unaffected body segments. With skin disorders, in which the segmental expression of symptoms is most easily ...

The intravascular administration of iodinated contrast agents is part of many diagnostic and therapeutic radiologic procedures. Since these agents have no therapeutic value, it is important that they be safe. The contrast agents that have been in use for ...

There had been 243,423 deaths from AIDS in the United States through June 30, 1994.¹ About 40,000 new infections with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) occur annually.² Given the human suffering, lost economic productivity, and medical costs ...

To the Editor: Brook and colleagues (July 7 issue)¹ describe two cases of Plasmodium vivax malaria apparently acquired locally in New Jersey. This is of course a remarkable occurrence, and the hypothesis that the malarial parasite was transmitted locally ...

To the Editor: Christie and colleagues (July 7 issue)¹ document the effect of the 1993 pertussis outbreak in Cincinnati and suggest that the proportion of cases in fully vaccinated children provides evidence of “the failure of the whole-cell pertussis ...

To the Editor: In the Clinical Problem-Solving exercise on hypercalcemia (July 7 issue),¹ I disagree with Dr. Kreisberg's comment, made more than once, that the diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism can be ruled out at an early stage. I submit that ...

To the Editor: Guerina et al. (June 30 issue)¹ claim a “favorable” cost-benefit ratio for neonatal screening for congenital toxoplasmosis, but their data are inadequate. Although they mention laboratory and personnel costs, they do not include the added ...

To the Editor: In a transplant recipient with disseminated amebic infection (July 14 issue),¹ Slater et al. reported that organisms were initially overlooked on examination of the skin-biopsy specimen stained with hematoxylin and eosin. When we suspect ...

To the Editor: In his editorial on the article by Offit and colleagues (July 14 issue),¹ Kluin² concludes that “it is intriguing that activation of the bcl-6 gene seems to be disadvantageous to lymphoma cells: movement of the gene to a new chromosome ...

To the Editor: With regard to Dr. Lynch's discussion (July 14 issue)¹ of the case of a 41-year-old woman with a lytic jaw mass, lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and a multifocal neurologic disorder, the patient's reports of numbness and impaired sensation ...

This book is a stunner: concise, lucid, wise, important. Run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore to buy a copy, and read it promptly. It will tell you all you ever wanted to know about screening tests but were afraid to ask lest you appear to be ...

Weissman and Epstein's Falling through the Safety Net is a comprehensive and scholarly review of health insurance as a determinant in the use of health care resources and health status. The book also contains an excellent discussion of the major ...

As the national debate on health care reform continues, it is helpful to be reminded that this is not a new issue and that there are applicable lessons to be learned from past efforts. Professor Eli Ginzberg has observed and participated in those efforts ...

Since the 1920s a tradition has grown up of cataloguing the misdeeds of the American Medical Association (AMA) for nonprofessional audiences. In one of the earliest works in this category, written in 1929 and entitled The Medical Trust Unmasked (New York: ...