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WILLIAM BENNETT BEAN, M.D.

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1956;98(3):284-287.

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

When one encounters an unfamiliar combination of signs and symptoms in a patient he must decide whether this is a coincidental assemblage collected by chance in one person or whether it deserves to be called a syndrome. This is not just a matter of musty academic interest for imaginative speculation. Insight into the processes of disease may come from intense scrutiny of the rare as well as the multiplication of large collections of the commonplace. Uniform groups of signs and symptoms which we encounter with some regularity may arise in two general ways. A genetic or metabolic error may produce a number of different lesions when several different organs or systems are involved. Or a disorder in one system or one organ affects others in turn and disorganizes function or distorts tissues removed in locus and differing in function from those at the site of the primary disorder.

At times . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Iowa City

From the Department of Medicine of the College of Medicine, State University of Iowa.

Footnotes
Received for publication Feb. 28, 1956.

Aided in part by funds from Burroughs Wellcome & Company, Inc., Eli Lilly & Company, and the Department of Medicine Trust Fund.

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