Circulating Autoantibodies and Human Disease

THE past decade has seen the growth of a unitary theory to explain the causation of human disease that now bids fair to encompass virtually all ailments. The theory is not a new one, but its broad application to disease in general is a new phenomenon in medical opinion, and requires critical evaluation and, perhaps, in the interests of balance, a certain amount of foot dragging in some quarters. The theory concerns the role of autoimmunity in pathologic states affecting a wide variety of organs and tissues, and proposes that because of mutational changes in the immunologic attitude of lymphoid . . .