An Apparently Undescribed Infectious Exanthem *

During the past few years, patients with an unidentified acute febrile illness have appeared on the wards of the New Haven Hospital. They present similar signs and symptoms. We have been unable to recognize this syndrome as that of any of the known infectious diseases. We believe that it may be a new disease and we are taking this opportunity to report eleven cases seen in the past five years, including one small family epidemic. The disease is characterized by fever, a uniform absence of prostration, malaise, a red-brown maculo-papular skin eruption, varying degrees of general lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and leukopenia with relative lym-phocytosis but without any consistent pathologic cytology. Fig. 1 summarizes the important data.