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Therapeutic Evolution: A Professor’s View

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Scleroderma

Abstract

My first encounter with systemic sclerosis (SSc) in medical school was the demonstration for our class by the professor at Malmö Jan Waldenström of a case of what he presented as Thibierge-Weissenbach’s syndrome. Dr. Waldenström had a strong interest in connective tissue diseases and urged us to buy the then new textbook by Talbott and Ferrandis (Talbott JH, Ferrandis RM. Collagen diseases. New York: Grune and Stratton; 1956. p. 137–80). Some lessons were “systemic scleroderma is not a rare malady,” the overlap with polymyositis, and of course the unknown cause. Much of the pathology was well described, including “scattered foci lymphocytic infiltration distributed perivascularly.” All organ manifestations were described; including the GI tract “starvation…is a serious threat.”

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Correspondence to Frank Wollheim MD, PhD, FRCP .

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Wollheim, F. (2012). Therapeutic Evolution: A Professor’s View. In: Varga, J., Denton, C., Wigley, F. (eds) Scleroderma. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5774-0_2

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