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Previous Volume 330:769-774 March 17, 1994 Number 11 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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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 . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Approach to Diagnosis

Infectious Arthritis

Bacterial Infection

Bacterial Endocarditis

Lyme Disease

Mycobacterial and Fungal Arthritis

Viral Arthritis

Postinfectious or Reactive Arthritis

Enteric or Urogenital Infection (Reiter's Syndrome)

Rheumatic Fever

Arthritis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Systemic Rheumatic Illness

Systemic Vasculitis

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Crystal-Induced Arthritis

Other Disorders

Prolonged or Recurrent Illness

Source Information

From the Department of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J.

Address reprint requests to Dr. Pinals at the Department of Medicine, the Medical Center at Princeton, Princeton, NJ 08540.

References

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Slaiby, J. M., Fan, C.-M., Aretz, H. T. (1999). Case 38-1999- A 62-Year-Old Woman with an Infected Right Foot and Aneurysmal Dilatation of a Femoral Artery. NEJM 341: 1913-1921 [Full Text]  
• Shmerling, R. H., Caliendo, A. M. (1998). Case 19-1998- A 70-Year-Old Man with Diarrhea, Polyarthritis, and a History of Reiter's Syndrome. NEJM 338: 1830-1836 [Full Text]