FOR A NUMBER of years reports have appeared of a variety of disorders characterized by repetition of similar events. These may begin in early life and recur at regular, predictable intervals of days, weeks, or months or at irregular intervals. The episodes of disease may recur for decades; they may cease temporarily or permanently, and the general health rarely is disturbed. In early observations, the recurrence of the episodes at regular intervals in many cases led to the introduction of the term periodic disease.1 However, exact periodicity often is absent, as noted previously2 and in 58 patients studied at the American University Hospital.3 Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether the different varieties of periodic disease described have anything more in common than the mechanism underlying recurrence.
According to Reimann and his associates, the only variety of periodic disease encountered in Lebanon is the form characterized by episodes of abdominalgia.3