Evidence of rheumatoid arthritis in ancient India.

The scarcity of references in ancient medical literature to any disease resembling rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has led many Western rheumatologists to believe that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease of relatively recent origin. In a recent paper on this problem, Short traces the first adequate description of what was probably rheumatoid arthritis to Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) and emphasizes that European and Greek medical literature before Sydenham's time may have confused gout and other forms of polyarthritis as manifestations of the same disease (1). Studies in human paleopathology have as yet produced no convincing evidence for the existenct of RA in ancient human remains, but Short suggested that a study of the ancient medical literature of the Eastern civilizations may provide some new information on the true antiquity of rheumatoid arthritis.