Polyarthritis and Fever

Perhaps no disease is more painful than acute polyarthritis. The inability to change the posture without agonizing pain, the drenching sweats, the prostration, utter helplessness, combine to make it one of the most distressing of febrile afflictions. A special feature of the disease is the tendency of the inflammation to subside in one joint, while developing with great intensity in another.-- Sir William Osler, The Principles, Practice of Medicine.Osler's vivid description of acute polyarthritis a century ago1 referred to rheumatic fever, clearly the bellwether of this group of disorders in that era. Despite its high worldwide prevalence in . . .