778 Annals of Internal Medicine Periodic Meningitis An Unusual Manifestation of Periodic Disease

THE PERIODIC DISEASE SYNDROMES have lately become a popular topic, following the de-scription of "benign paroxysmal peritonitis" by Siegal (1) in 1945 and of "periodic disease" by Reimann (2) in 1948. During the past 20 years, there have appeared many reports of various types of periodic illnesses with overlap-ping manifestations and a confusing list of names (for one of them), which vary from one area to another. It has become apparent that these interesting and varied syndromes prob-ably share a common origin and represent dif-ferent aspects of a single basic process. We have recently had the opportunity to study a patient whose case illustrates a rare form of periodic illness, together with many o