One of the most prestigious, comprehensive texts on arthritis and related diseases, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, lupus and more than one hundred others.

For eight decades the Primer on the Rheumatic Diseases has been the standard text from which most medical students and house ofcers have learned rheumatology. I myself will never forget thumbing through an older edition of the Primer as a second-year resident, while waiting to review a perplexing patient with my tutor. Fortunately the tutor was r- ning late with his own patients, so I had time to fip through the book then much thinner a couple of times. While turning the pages, per- ing the features of those diseases whose names were still exotic to me, and considering my patient s history of...