Periarteritis Nodosa

AN ENORMOUS amount of medical literature has been published on the subject of periarteritis nodosa since the disease was first described by Kussmaul and Maier in 1865.11Many authors have made a systematic study of the literature and of the disease, the most complete being the articles by Dr. Linn J. Boyd,2of the New York Medical College, who wrote an excellent series of eight papers during the years 1938 to 1944. Within recent years an etiologic agent has been suspected by several investigators. In 1936 Cohen and others3reported 2 cases in which the disease was associated with a definite family history of allergy and in which allergic manifestations preceded the onset. They stated in this report: Our experience with this condition has led us to the conclusion that it is a manifestation of clinical allergy of so severe a degree that irreversible and destructive lesions