Special Article

THAT Hugh McCulloch, fond as he is of old books, should have a particular love for W.B. Cheadle's Various Manifestations of the Rheumatic State as Exemplified in Childhood and Early Life is not surprising, because there was a time, not too long ago, when "Cheadle's Cycle" was almost synonymous with rheumatic fever. In the days when there were no laboratory Procedures of any practical value, wise medical students usually memorized "the seven phases of the rheumatic state," because that was the easiest way to learn nearly all that was known about the disease up to that time. The "seven phases" first appeared in a small, cloth-bound, octavo volume of about 125 pages which was published in London in 1889. It is a relatively scarce item and seldom found in the bookseller's lists today. Walter Butler Cheadle (1836-1910) was a popular athlete while at Cambridge, but he first became internationally known when he co-authored a thrilling account of his explorations in the Canadian Rockies, a story which went through 8 editions. He finally settled down to practice in London, and soon became a distinguished clinician, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and Physician to St. Mary's Hospital. When he published his observations on rheumatic fever he had been on the staff of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, for 20 years. His other publications indicate that he had been interested in a great variety of subjects, such as measles, infant feeding, heart disease, hepatic cirrhosis, and exophthalmic goiter. He was one of the first to separate infantile scurvy from rickets.