Blood pressure is directly related to mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD),¹–⁴ and previous results from the Seven Countries Study have suggested that the relative increase in mortality from CHD for a given increase in blood pressure is similar ...

Maternal alloimmunization occurs when a pregnant woman has an immunologic response to a paternally derived red-cell antigen that is foreign to the mother and inherited by the fetus. The antibodies may cross the placenta, bind to antigens present on the ...

Invasive group B streptococcal disease emerged in the 1970s as a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in the United States.¹–⁴ In the 1990s, 4 to 6 percent of affected newborns died from the infection.⁵,⁶ Surviving infants often have ...

There are many types of cerebellar ataxia, including ataxia due to congenital or metabolic disorders and a paraneoplastic form in patients with gynecologic cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, or Hodgkin's disease.¹ This paraneoplastic syndrome is the only ...

Figure 1. A 45-year-old man with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome presented with night sweats, fatigue, cachexia, and a productive cough. He had a fever (temperature, 40°C), tachycardia (heart rate, 136 per minute), a leukocyte count of 2.5×10³ per ...

“For it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes ...

Stage

A 62-year-old, retired painter was hospitalized three weeks before transfer to a referral hospital. He reported a temperature of 38.8°C, chills, myalgias, headache, and dysuria of five days' duration. About three months earlier, he had also been ...

The second millennium is over. The editors of the Journal first thought to ignore this passage. After all, the changing of the millennium would undoubtedly be the subject of incessant media attention. Why should we add to it? Yet, looking back, it is hard ...

The level of blood pressure has long been recognized as a determinant of the risks for several common cardiovascular diseases, including coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and heart failure. Throughout the 20th century, most attention has ...

Despite the introduction of anti-D immune globulin (Rh immunoglobulin) for the prevention of anti-D red-cell alloimmunization, hemolytic disease of the newborn continues to occur because of the lack or failure of prophylaxis or because of maternal ...

To the Editor: In the July 29 issue, Kern et al.¹ and Freifeld et al.² reach similar conclusions about the efficacy of oral as compared with intravenous antibiotic therapy for febrile patients with neutropenia due to cancer chemotherapy who have a low ...

To the Editor: The study by Durham et al. (Aug. 12 issue)¹ of the clinical efficacy of grass-pollen immunotherapy has a complex design. According to the authors, the study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the discontinuation of ...

To the Editor: We describe a 38-year-old woman with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and West Nile viral encephalitis. She had a CD4+ lymphocyte count of 351 per cubic millimeter, less than 50 copies of HIV RNA per milliliter on polymerase-...

To the Editor: We believe that the differential diagnosis suggested by Dr. Watkins in Case 25-1999 (Aug. 19 issue)¹ was somehow forced. A boy of Turkish descent who presents with recurrent attacks of fever and peritonitis that last about a day and ...

To the Editor: Eloubeidi and Fowler (Sept. 2 issue)¹ describe a 47-year-old woman with emphysematous pyelonephritis. They state, “Given the high risk of death associated with conservative therapy in this disorder, we immediately performed a radical left ...

To the Editor: In their excellent review of anthrax infection, Dixon et al. (Sept. 9 issue)¹ state that the only known use of anthrax in war was by the Japanese in China in the 1940s. Two other instances have been reported, however, one of which is well ...

In 1765, Domenico Cotugno described a soldier with dropsy (the nephrotic syndrome) who had a response to treatment with potassium bitartrate. Dr. Cotugno was apparently satisfied, and on the basis of this case, he concluded that he had made the right ...

Experimental models are conventions; the community of scientists designates, often informally, its subjects of study. Today, scientists not only breed their experimental animals; they also exercise the power to add to, delete, exchange, or mutate the ...

Forty years ago, prospects were bleak for a patient with cystic fibrosis, which was then an invariably fatal disease of early childhood. Patients seldom survived beyond infancy; they succumbed to malnutrition and pulmonary complications. Nonetheless, a ...