PALATINE PETECHIAE

To the Editor:—  Whenever a helpful physical sign, laboratory test, or a specific therapy is uncovered, it obviously should be reported carefully, critically, and objectively, even if only a small series. I do not wish to start a correspondence argument over a seemingly minor issue, but the phenomenon of palatine petechiae described in The Journal (161:592 [June 16] 1956), in "Palatine Petechiae, an Early Sign in Infectious Mononucleosis," by Capt. C. B. Shiver and associates, has been so helpful to many of us over the past few years that I believe an attempt should be made to give some credit to observations distinctly antedating those of the authors in 1955. Since no challenge to their claim of a first report of this sign in the literature has yet appeared in your correspondence section, I feel obliged to point out that palatine petechiae had been adequately described and photographed in