Goodpasture's disease

Correspondence to: Dr Alan D Salama, Laboratory of Immunogenetics and Transplantation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA (e-mail: asalama@rics.bwh.harvard.edu) Goodpasture’s disease In 1919, Goodpasture was attempting to define the specific pathological features of influenza infection in diseased lungs, and reported the autopsy findings in two patients who had died at the height of the 1918–19 pandemic. The finding of hyaline membranes overlying dilated alveoli, without positive microbiological cultures, was thought to be pathognomonic of influenza. However, one of the patients had evidence of systemic disease with prominent renal involvement. This description of a pulmonary-renal Goodpasture’s disease