METEOROLOGIC FACTORS AND ACUTE RHEUMATISM.

The relation which acute rheumatism bears to meteorologic conditions has long been a subject of speculation and seems likely to remain so for some time. It would naturally be assumed that the disease would be most prevalent in moist weather, but this is so far from being the case that Newsholme and other authorities have brought forward evidence which strongly supports the view that exactly the opposite is true, viz.: that rheumatism is most apt to occur in extremely dry weather. Some recent studies published by Greenwood and Thompson³ seem to support the view that acute articular rheumatism occurs most frequently, in England at any rate, during the driest month, August. The article points out that most of the conclusions as to the meteorologic relations of rheumatism have been drawn from hospital statistics, and it further shows that a "general hospital population" is constituted differently from a normal population.