A Study of the Cardiac In-patient in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast

rhe INFECTIVE group consists of 674. cases, or 53.8 per cent. of the total admissions, and of this group the rheumatic had 4153 cases, one-third of the total, or 67.2 per cent. of the Infective group. In this group are placed those cases with a definite history of rheumatic fever, chorea, growing pains, tonsillitis, scarlet fever, andl erythema nodosum. Ten per cent. of the patients with a definite valve lesion under the age of thirty gave no definite history of any previous illness. This negative history corresponds roughly with the findings of Swift,l who, in a recent record of 253 girls with rheumatic heart disease, found that twenty-one per cent. did not give a history of chorea, rheumatic fever, or growing pains; and of 174 boys, fourteen per cent. gave no history of the above previous illnesses.