Rheumatic Pericarditis With Effusion Treated With Salicylates

Salicylates have been used in the treatment of acute articular rheumatism for some sixty years, but there remain wide differences of opinion with regard to their usefulness and mode of action. Yet the use of the drug persists, and studies of its clinical applications are still being published. In the United States, clinical practice largely restricts the use of salicylates to the relief of acute rheumatic arthritis. In Europe, particularly in France, the salicylates are regarded as valuable measures in the treatment of the cardiac manifestations of rheumatic fever. A number of careful studies made in this country beginning with one by Miller1in 1914 and continuing to that of Master and Romanoff2in 1932 show that the administration of salicylates does not reduce the frequency of cardiac complications of patients with rheumatic fever. Wyckoff, DeGraff and Parent3demonstrated by electrocardiographic studies that the conduction disturbances which