Editorial
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (1947)

It is with the greatest of pleasure that we extend the hospitality of our pages to the American Rheumatism Association for a report of the Proceedings of their important reunion meeting held last year in New York.The Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, although published in London, and closely affiliated with the Empire Rheumatism Council, has never adopted a policy of accepting articles only from British sources, but opens its pages to all workers in rheumatic diseases; and it is pleasant to recall that within the past year communications have been printed from Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia, and the U.S.A., as well as from workers in the British Isles.With two eminent American rheumatologists serving on the editorial committee, the link between workers on the two sides of the Atlantic has been well established for some time past, and we hope that this present issue of the Annals will make the link still firmer.We believe that the Proceedings of the American Rheumatism Association will be a great stimulus to British workers.The papers reflect the trend of thought in America, and suggest both research and therapeutic advances which should be followed up.The opening address by the President, Dr. Paul Holbrook, is stimulating and points out much that needs still to be done to encourage the study of the subject and to advance the knowledge of the general practitioner in the problems presented by the manifold forms of rheumatism and the best methods of treatment.His suggestions on the formation of Theumatism societies throughout the country deserve careful consideration, and while experience of the attendance of busy practitioners at medical meetings does not promise that such societies would be easily organized and become active, it might be possible to organize rheumatism discussions, perhaps linked with the division meetings of the British Medical Association, and to form groups of practitioners disposed to interest themselves in the subject, whose observations upon their patients in the course of daily practice might prove of great value.It is not unlikely that encouragement in this direction might produce results; such groups could become affiliated with the Empire Rheumatism Council or with the Heberden Society.Now that many who have hitherto subscribed to hospitals are tending to withdraw their subscriptions on the ground that their maintenance is to be a matter for the State, there is an opening for inducing them to devote their interest and financial support to the establishment of research fellowships in rheumatic diseases, and no doubt the Empire Rheumatism Council will not be blind to the possibility.The possibility of organizing periodic meetings on the lines of the American Rheumatism Association or the British Association of Physicians deserves to be explored and might lead to progress and to widening the interest in the subject.Such meetings, spread over%one or two days and held perhaps every second year in different centres, aiming to attract general practitioners as well as specialists might, if well organized, soon become events of importance in-the medical world.