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JAMA. 1970;214(2):361-362.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Among the diseases due to infectious agents, rheumatic fever is somewhat of an anomaly. That it is caused by group A streptococcal pharyngitis has been known for a long time; that it can be prevented by adequate treatment of such infections —or by their prevention—has been known for more than 20 years. These advances would be expected to result in the eradication of the disease. But the disease has not been eradicated, as Markowitz reminds us in his recently published T.D. Jones Memorial Lecture.¹ In fact, in urban areas it may hover at levels not much lower than in the 1930's. Why then, has rheumatic fever firmly refused to disappear, as any well-behaved disease should when its etiology and prevention become known? Why hasn't it become a museum piece, like diphtheria or polio?

No doubt these comparisons are a bit unfair. Most other diseases of infectious origin that have . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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