RHEUMATIC FEVER
has been commonly attributed to a damp condition of the atmosphere and soil. I have elsewhere shown that this is a mistake, probably arising from the fact that these conditions produce what are called “rheumatic” pains, though they have no true relationship with acute rheumatism (rheumatic fever). I have shown that rheumatic fever occurs chiefly in very dry years, the excess of prevalence in such years being sufficient to justify the use of the term “epidemic.” There is strong reason to believe that rheumatic fever is an infective disease, derived, not from other patients suffering from the same disease, but from some outside micro-organism which is ordinarily saprophytic. It follows the rule that when the lesion produced by an infective disease is deepseated (in the joints in this instance), no infection can be communicated to other persons. Some families are much more prone to rheumatic fever than others.