Professor Panayi has created a most interesting book. It is, as he states in his preface, a "presentation, in one source, of the important concepts in the scientific investigation of rheumatological disease." It is not, as the cover blurb would indicate, one of the first to present this synthesis of basic and clinical sciences, as it can be found in some of the major textbooks currently published and in many other sources in the expanding library of rheumatology. However, one of the unique features of the book is that there is little else than the science of rheumatology, and for that, it is a valuable resource.
The initial chapter on the infection and pathogenesis of connective-tissue diseases provides a reasonable explanation, according to current tenets, of how infections might trigger or be responsible for some of the rheumatic diseases and for phenomena that occur within them. A second chapter, on