TY - JOUR T1 - Rheumatoid Arthritis in Recession JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 1353 LP - 1354 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.090571 VL - 36 IS - 7 AU - NICOLA ALCORN AU - MENG MAY CHEE AU - ROBERT MURDOCH AU - RAJAN MADHOK Y1 - 2009/07/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/36/7/1353.abstract N2 - In 1979 the rheumatologist Watson Buchanan and the mathematician Robert Murdoch proposed a bold hypothesis in The Journal: that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) would eventually disappear1. The basis of their hypothesis was that RA appeared to be following the pattern of an infectious illness and, if it continued to do so, it would naturally recede and vanish, probably sometime in the next 100 years. They also argued that as the prevalence of the disease decreased, its severity would similarly decline. In many ways this contradicts the widely-held assumption that medicine and, in particular, medical interventions have turned the tide against the many epidemics of diseases of the 19th and 20th centuries.Buchanan and Murdoch took as their example the decline in incidence of tuberculosis that occurred long before the introduction of drug therapy, but they could equally have chosen leprosy or scarlet fever. Deaths due to coronary artery disease, usually described as a noncommunicable disease, have also been showing a decline since the 1950s, prior to the introduction of effective therapies. Many hypotheses have been suggested, but one of the most appealing was offered by the late Lewis Thomas. He suggested that the catalyst was the advertising campaigns for aspirin for musculoskeletal symptoms and headaches that arose with the introduction of television in the 1950s2.We consider the evidence that Watson and Murdoch postulated and how the data presented by Sokka and Pincus3 published in this issue support the view that … Address correspondence to Dr. Alcorn. E-mail: Nicola.Alcorn{at}ggc.scot.nhs.uk ER -