Studies on Erythema Annulare Rheumaticum

Abstract

Summary.The erythema annulare rheumaticum described by Lehndorff and Leiner has been observed in 12 per cent, of the children with acute polyarthritis, rheumatic endocarditis and chorea nursed at the Gothenburg Children's Hospital during the last 4 years. The disease occurs more commonly in children with severe rheumatic infections than in those with slight infection. The disease has not yet been observed in children where there is no ground for assuming the presence of rheumatic infection; but on the other hand it does not necessarily presuppose the presence of clinically demonstrable cardiac changes or of any clinical indications of the activity of the rheumatic infection. As a rule, however, the erythema appears in children manifesting clinical signs of cardiac affection during the active phase of the rheumatic disease. Very frequently the exythema appears very early after the onset of the rheumatic infection; in certain exceptional cases it may constitute the first clinical symptom of that infection. The erythema, which generally appears several times in the same child, is to be regarded as an anginoneurosis arising on a rheumatic‐allergic base in certain highly susceptible individuals. The liberating factors are, apart from exacerbations of the rheumatic infection, not infrequently acute infections, certain thermic effects on the skin, while mental strains also play an important role in its occurrence.