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Simultaneous Alopecia Areata in Husband and Wife

SHELDON SWIFT, M.D.

Arch Dermatol. 1961;84(6):932-934.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Folie à deux is not a common condition. The term was coined in 1877 by Lasèque and Falret¹ to connote contagious insanity or the psychosis of association. It has been defined by Gralnick² as "a psychiatric entity characterized by the transference of delusional ideas and/or behavior from one person to one or more others who have been in close association with the primarily affected patient." The first recorded case was described by Berlyn in 1819.³

Heredity has often been cited as a factor in psychiatric disease. In folie à deux, length of association between the affected patients is probably a more important factor than heredity. It could certainly account for the relative frequency with which folie à deux occurs in families just as well as a theoretical hereditary tendency. However, Craike and Slater⁴ have reported folie à deux in uniovular twins, sisters who had been separated . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
LOS ANGELES

From the Department of Dermatology, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, and the Department of Dermatology, Loma Linda University and White Memorial Hospital.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication Jan. 23, 1961.

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