[Drug prevention of rheumatism: a glance into past and present time].

The paper provides scientifically grounded evidence for the principles of current (bicillin) prevention of rheumatism, gives the existing international and Russian primary and secondary prevention schemes for this disease, analyzes the causes of recurrent rheumatism in the 1990s, the main ones being the refusal of bicillin prevention or patient noncompliance. It is concluded that at present the bicillin prevention of rheumatism remains to be highly effective.