ERUPTIVE FEVER WITH INVOLVEMENT OF THE RESPIRATORY TRACT, CONJUNCTIVITIS, STOMATITIS AND BALANITIS

DURING the past several years, 20 cases of an unusual disease syndrome, which has had some mention in the literature of the past sixty years, have been observed at a military installation. The syndrome has been described under a variety of appellations such as eruptive fever with stomatitis and ophthalmia, erythema exudativum multiforme of Hebra, erythema or herpes iris conjunctivae, ectodermosis erosiva pluriorificialis and Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Such a terrifying array of unfamiliar and difficult names suggests, perhaps, why this disease remains an unknown and undiagnosed entity to most physicians. However, after one has seen a typical case the various clinical features fall into a rather easily recognized pattern which is difficult to mistake thereafter. This condition is an acute, systemic, frequently febrile disease running a self-limited course of a few days to several weeks and involving, to varying degrees, the respiratory tract, skin and mucous membranes, chiefly those of the