A new book on rheumatoid arthritis in the United States will be compared to the encyclopedic and all-inclusive Hollander and McCarty Arthritis on the one hand, and the American Rheumatism Association's Primer on the Rheumatic Diseases on the other. Rheumatoid Arthritis, the volume in hand, is a recent publication devoted for the most part to this disease. It is edited by Edward D. Harris, Jr, MD, who is an associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. The book is multiauthored, and for the most part utilized those people in the field of rheumatology who have something to say.
The material in the book is not well put together. The editing is loose and the presentation of the subject matter varies from chapter to chapter in an inconsistent manner. References, for example, are used in a haphazard way. In the first half of chapter 2, a number of authors are