Gout, with a section on ocular disease in the gouty

by Llewellyn J. Llewellyn

Osteoarthritis

Its chief characteristics may be summarised as follows:—It is a disease rarely met with under forty years of age. The mode of onset is generally insidious, never really acute. In this respect it contrasts with gout, the initial outbreak of which is invariably acute. Osteoarthritis attacks both sexes equally. Although it may be polyarticular, its specific tendency is towards a mono- or, more accurately speaking, oligo-articular distribution, with no marked leaning to symmetry. It has a pronounced predilection for attacking the hip, the shoulder, and the spine—sites rarely, if ever, attacked by gout.

Unlike gout, constitutional symptoms, pyrexia and so forth, are generally absent; muscular atrophy is slight, hardly ever pronounced, likewise muscular spasm and contracture.