Family survey of Reiter's disease*

Some workers have thought that Reiter's disease is due to an agent which enters the body through inflamed mucous membrane, either intestinal or urethral. A simple acute infection, however, would seem unlikely, since in recurrent attacks no urethral infection is found in half the cases and only half of the cases of venereally-acquired urethritis lead to recurrences in patients with past Reiter's disease (Csonka, 1960). The urethritis associated with Reiter's disease and that not so associated appear indistin-guishable. Doubt has been thrown on the infective cause even of the urethritis, since Reiter's syndrome has been produced in rats by injections of Freund's adjuvan