If you grew up in the United States after the middle of the past century, you've probably never thought much about rheumatic fever. And for good reason. In that era, the disease seemed to become a thing of the past.
But in the first part of the 20th century, it was ever-present, untreatable and devastating. "About 100 years ago, there were more pediatric hospital beds occupied by children with rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease than all other infectious diseases combined," said Dr. Stanford T.
Shulman, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who has written about the history of such diseases. "That just gives you a handle on how really common this illness used to be." In the 1920s, rheumatic fever was a leading cause of death for people between the ages of 5 and 20.
A 1947 medical journal article called it "childhood's greatest enemy." The fact that it touches few U.S.
children today is one of the great scientific successes of the century. But that does not make rheumatic fever a historical footnote. "It is largely forgotten, but it's certainly not gone," said cardiovascular pathophysiologist Dr.
Kathryn A. Taubert, an adjunct professor at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. She co-wrote an editorial about the history of rheumatic fever in Circulation in 2021.
The course of the illness starts with a sore throat from an infection with group A streptococcal bacteria – strep throat. Left untreated, str.