BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



crippling or death — to inflammatory rheumatic conditions 

 affecting the joints, general infections which affect the 

 joints, gout, and similar diseases. 



Rheumatic conditions are responsible to-day for a vast 

 amount of disability, because a person with inflamed 

 joints is usually not able to walk very well. There is no 

 question that germs from the throat, the nose, or the 

 teeth may be carried by the blood to the joints and there 

 set up secondary infections. Obviously, it would be desir- 

 able to develop some method of injection or some drug 

 that could be taken by mouth that would overcome such 

 infection. In most instances, however, all science can do 

 is to help to put the body in such shape that it will resist 

 or overcome the disease, since there is as yet no established 

 specific method of preventing or controlling these infections. 



In addition to the rheumatic infections and inflamma- 

 tions that are definitely associated with the poison of 

 germs, inflammations of the joints sometimes arise through 

 what appear to be chemical reactions in the body, such 

 as the reaction to the injection of some protein substance 

 to which the human being may be sensitive. There are 

 certain conditions in which a joint, particularly the knee 

 joint, suddenly fills with water which, after an interval, 

 disappears; then, perhaps after two or three weeks, the 

 joint will suddenly fill with water again and, after three 

 or four days, once more recover. The cause of this condition, 

 which is called intermittent hydrarthrosis, is not known, 

 and the current method of treatment is to endeavor to 

 produce some reaction in the body which will change the 

 general condition. 



Not only are investigators convinced that inflammations 

 of the joints are due to the actual presence of the germs in 

 the joint, but many of them are inclined to believe that 

 the poisons developed by the germs localize in the joints 

 and set up inflammation. Usually, in such conditions, the 



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