Childhood characteristics, rated “blind” from maternal retrospective reports, were compared for 44 young adult psychiatric inpatients and their “normal” siblings. Patients differed significantly from siblings on several childhood variables and had poorer overall childhood adjustments. Those with the most deviant childhood histories had significantly earlier onsets of psychiatric illness.

The conclusion that the War of 1812 was essentially a struggle for the protection of national honor and neutral maritime rights was generally accepted throughout the nineteenth century. At the turn of the century, the advent of critical scholarship revealed the inadequacy of this explanation, and it was corrected by the addition of non-maritime factors as contributing causes. Lately the tendency has been to stress these non-maritime elements and to relegate British aggressions on the sea to a position of minor importance. One can no longer doubt that nineteenth century writers overestimated the significance of maritime matters, but contemporary historians are perhaps committing an equally serious error in the opposite direction. James Madison, in his war message of June 1, 1812, argued that a declaration of war was forced upon the United States by the British practices of violating the American flag on the high seas, harassing the Atlantic coast, seizing American seamen, and plundering the commerce of neutrals with paper blockades as a pretext at legalization of the procedure. 1 This set the keynote and nineteenth century historians almost unanimously took up the tune the maritime rights interpretation became the dogma of the century.2

This report documents the case of a 64‐year‐old African‐American female with new end‐stage renal disease (ESRD), diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on renal biopsy and serologies including a positive ANA (>1:2560), positive anti‐Sm antibodies, low titer anti‐RNP antibodies, high titer anti‐Ro antibodies, anti‐dsDNA antibodies, lupus anticoagulant, and hypocomplementemia. She was also noted to have tender nodules on the bilateral shins. Excisional biopsy of one of the nodules showed marked fat necrosis with “ghost cells” and patchy basophilic granular debris consistent with pancreatic panniculitis. Further examination for pancreatic pathology showed an elevated lipase of 585 U/L (reference range 8‐78 U/L) and amylase of 214 U/L (reference range 25‐125 U/L). However, computed tomography imaging showed no evidence of pancreatitis or pancreatic tumors. This is very similar to another case recently reported in the literature. Similarities of these two cases (African‐American females with lupus nephritis on dialysis) may represent a particular subset of SLE patients at increased risk for pancreatic panniculitis.

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