Salicylate therapy in acute rheumatic fever

Abstract

The use of salicylate in the treatmentof acute rheumatic fever has been common practice for many years. The dose of the drug to be employed has been the subject of much speculation, but until recently no quantitative studies had been made. It is only in the last year that there has been an attempt at correlating the efficacy of salicylate therapy with the concentration of the drug in the circulating blood plasma. The importance of maintaining the plasma salicylate level above 350 micrograms per cubic centimeter in the treatment of acute rheumatic fever has been emphasized by Coburn.1We have treated a series of patients with acute rheumatic fever with this aim in view and the results obtained are reported in this paper. METHOD Selection of Cases.— For this study cases were selected in which a definite diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever could be established. To reach the diagnosis