Recent Advances in the Study of Rheumatism

The subject of rheumatism in its varied aspects has resulted in the development of such a vast literature that it is difficult to keep pace with it. The appearance of the second edition of this book in the Recent Advances series is therefore welcome. The volume affords an excellent review of all recent publications with adequate discussions and comments. After an introductory note on nomenclature, the authors have adopted a classification dividing rheumatic diseases, as simply as possible, into acute rheumatism, particularly that affecting children, and into chronic rheumatism which has been subdivided into rheumatoid arthritis and osteo-arthritis. Recent investigations do not seem to promise the discovery of any one outstanding predisposing cause, but rather a combination of many which tend to lower the general health. Most authorities favour the view that damp is a decided factor in rheumatism, although the evidence collected by the Medical Research Council Committee throwing doubt upon this idea cannot be