WHIPPLES DISEASE

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Publish Date: 1962/08/04

Volume: 181, Issue: 5, Pages: 434-435

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Abstract

Fiftyfive years ago G H Whipple1 described the features of the unusual gastrointestinal disorder which now bears his name His classical morphological description of the lesions encountered in the gastrointestinal tract and mesenteric lymph nodes characterized by conspicuous lipidladen microcysts suggested to him as well as many subsequent observers that the disease might represent an intestinal form of lipodystrophy Little significant information in this regard was provided until 1949 when BlackSchaffer2 noted that the histiocytes present within the lesions also noted by Whipple possessed a mucopolysaccharide moiety in their cytoplasm which was vividly demonstrated by the then recently described periodic acidSchiff histochemical procedureThis finding provoked speculation that Whipples disease might be related to an alteration of intestinal mucin also periodic acidSchiff positive that it might be due to a change in intestinal ground substance or that the material was present in the circulation and was subsequently phagocytized

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