[Acute pericarditis caused by Rickettsia conori].

A new case report of acute pericarditis due to Rickettsia conori, the seventh to be published in the French literature, highlights the following facts:--the widespread distribution of fièvre boutonneuse, which is to be found in a wide strip around the Meditteranean basin;--the mechanism by which the pericardium is affected, which is probably auto-immune;--the criteria for the biological diagnosis of the Rickettsial diseases;--above all, the neccessity for prolonged antibiotic therapy, however apparently benign the disease may have seemed.