Recovery From Amyloidosis

Until Waldenström's¹report in 1928, it was generally believed that amyloidosis was a progressive and fatal disease. Although, before this time, observations were made from time to time on patients who apparently recovered from the disease, they were seldom published²because of uncertainty of diagnosis. It was usually concluded that recovery was an indication that the patient did not have amyloid disease. Recently, however, Kuczynski,³Morgenstern⁴and others have shown experimentally that amyloid substance may be resorbed if the factors favoring its formation and deposition are discontinued. The introduction of the congo red test by Bennhold and the method of liver and spleen biopsy by Waldenström permitted accurate clinical diagnosis to be made during life. As a result of these advances, reports of recovery from amyloid disease in eleven cases have been published.⁵ The following is the report of a case of tuberculosis of