Chronic Focal Infection as a Causative Factor in Chronic Arthritis

I presented a paper1on this subject in January, 1912. The study of the subject has been vigorously carried on since that date. Altogether seventy patients suffering from arthritis deformans have been investigated and treated in the Presbyterian Hospital under the auspices of the Otho S. A. Sprague Institute and the Dane Billings Memorial Fellowship in the Department of Medicine of Rush Medical College. This clinical research has confirmed the principles announced in the first paper. It has been found that the focal disease was usually located in the head. Most frequently this was a chronic streptococcus focus of the faucial tonsils; but chronic alveolar abscess and chronic sinusitis due to streptococcus infection were an occasional cause. In monarticular osteo-arthritis of the hip especially, chronic hypertrophic prostatitis with residual urine, chronic cystitis and infection with the colon bacillus seemed to be an etiologic factor. There can be no question