Hæmophilic Arthritis
It will be recalled that Rieken held the view that so-called “bleeders” were prone to attacks of gout, and that sometimes these alternated with intra-articular hæmorrhages. Nor was he devoid of supporters, for Sir Dyce Duckworth maintained that a definite hereditary relationship obtained between gout and hæmophilia, while that astute observer Jonathan Hutchinson also contended that the vascular weakness was the outcome of gout and aggravated by serial hereditary transmission. Wickham Legg, however, in his masterly contribution questioned the correctness of Rieken’s proposition.
Personally, I cannot out of my own experience confirm or rebut the view that “bleeders” come of gouty stock, nor have I ever met an avowed gouty subject who was likewise the victim of hæmophilia. Quâ its joint complications, hæmophilia to our mind would appear to display closer affinities with peliosis rheumatica than with gout; but, in view of Duckworth and Hutchinson’s claims, it were wiser on our part to withhold judgment, while paying them the deference of being alive to the possibility of there being some obscure connection, though not proven, between the two disorders. Again, as emphasising the necessity for discrimination, we would draw attention to the fact that Konig recognised three stages in hæmophilic arthritis: (1) hæmarthrosis; (2) an inflammatory process, with pyrexia and spindle-shaped swellings apt to be confused with tuberculosis; (3) extensive arthritic changes reminiscent of arthritis deformans. Confusion with gouty arthritis clearly is only likely in the second or third stages, and in the matter of diagnosis the personal and family tendency to hæmorrhages is the most important clue.