IT has often been said that the way to live a long life is to acquire rheumatism. The present investigation was designed to test this piece of folklore. More specifically, it is concerned with the shortened life expectancy and major causes of death in patients hospitalized because of rheumatoid arthritis.The material for this study consists of observations on 583 patients with rheumatoid arthritis1 who were hospitalized at the Massachusetts General Hospital and were subsequently followed for an average of nine and six-tenths years. It is important to note that, though patients were admitted to this study only as a . . .
Cobb et al. (1953) studied this question.