Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and several collagen diseases have similarities with each other. For example, it has been pointed out that there are overlaps between SLE with arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis with positive LE test, suggesting some correlations in etiology between them. It has also been noticed that autoimmunity may play an important role in etiology of socalled lupoid hepatitis, or juvenile liver cirrhosis with positive LE test or with similar clinical findings to SLE, although the disease is not considered to be one of collagen diseases.
On the other hand, it has been reported that there appear several factors, which show serological reactions to leukocytic protoplasma, nucleus, nucleoprotein, DNA, histone and non-histone protein besides LE factor in the sera of case with SLE. In this report, serum factors reacting to DNA, histone and nucleus were investigated in correlation with LE factor, in cases with SLE, rheumatoid arthritis and liver diseases, for the purpose of elucidating the mechanism for formation of LE factor. Fourteen cases with SLE, 113 with rheumatoid arthritis, 72 with hepatitis or liver cirrhosis and 128 with other miscellaneous diseases were studied.

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The cases of acute rheumatic fever admitted to the Department of Internal Medicine of Toho University Hospital, were 42 patients in the period 1958 to 1960. The ratios of these patients to the total admitted patients in each year, were 2% respectively.
Considering an adult as 20 years old or over, such cases were found to be about half in number.
Furthermore, in this clinic, the incidence of rheumatic fever was much higher than that of other classical collagen diseases, with the exception of rheumatoid arthritis. Thus this disease seemed to have a great importance among collagen diseases in the field of internal medicine. Consequently, studies were made on several clinical and laboratory findings of adult rheumatic fever from the angle of collagen diseases. The rheumatic fever studied in this paper was limited to systemic non-supprative inflammatory disease of protean manifestations, and fulfilled the Jones' modified criteria¹⁾.

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