Further Observations on the Occurrence of Rheumatic Manifestations in the Families of Rheumatic Patients

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Abstract
Medical histories, including epidemiological investigations of parents and grandparents of 96 children with rheumatic manifestations, at the Cardiac Clinic, are compared with 33 children of a Tuberculosis Clinic. The % of persons with rheumatic histories was consistently 3.7 times as high in each of 2 generations as in the control families. In the rheumatic group, matings in which one or both parents showed symptoms produced a greater % of rheumatic offspring than matings of parents not showing symptoms. Rheumatic manifestations were found twice as frequently in [female] as in [male] offspring of rheumatic mothers. This suggests that hereditary constitution may be a pre- disposing factor, but the evidence does not exclude exposure as the predominating factor.