Our purpose in this paper is to review briefly the literature on the syndrome of dermatomyositis, especially as regards the behavior of patients with this disease, and to record in detail the observations, over a period of two years, on a patient with involvement of one lower extremity, which finally had to be amputated. HISTORICAL REVIEW Unverricht1 in 1887 is credited with originating the terminology for the syndrome. Wagner2 and Hepp3 also reported cases in 1887. The first case reported in America was the one of Hepp. described by Henry Jackson4 in 1887. The literature was reviewed by Lorenz5 in 1904. Steiner6 in 1905 was able to collect twenty-eight cases that he regarded as typical, excluding cases reported by Sick7 of Tübingen and by others as not being typical. Dermatomyositis is described by Steiner.6 who reported the first large number of cases,