Medicine: Those Aching Joints

For the seventh month running, a book called Arthritis and Common Sense (Witkower Press; $3.95), by one Dan Dale Alexander, was high on U.S. bestseller lists. It is .sadly misnamed. Alexander is no man of medicine, but a sometime medical technician in the Army (where he rose to the rank of Pfc.) who got a Ph.D. from a London diploma mill. Burden of the book (aside from emphasis on the imagined importance of a full output of ear wax): "Arthritis is a deficiency of specific dietary oils. This deficiency results in a ... lack of better-grade lubricating oils for the bodily joints." The answer to it is just a question of diet, says Alexander. Sample recommendation: "If cereal is eaten at breakfast, be sure that the milk you pour on it is of room temperature."

The truth is that, for generations, medical science has tried every imaginable dietary trick for arthritis and related diseases and found none of them effective except in gout. The Federal Trade Commission plans to have Alexander up for a hearing next week about his claims and promotion. But the popularity of his book is an accurate reflection of the prevalence of the disease and the despondency of its victims.

Sophisticated Arthritis.' In the U.S. there are 11 million people who have one form or another of the arthritis group of diseases—what grandma called her "rheumatiz," the genteel called rheumatism, and the pseudo-sophisticated now call arthritis. Each year, more than 300,000 people are made temporarily unemployable for varying periods by rheumatic diseases, and many of them become rheumatic invalids.

The American Rheumatism Association lists seven forms of rheumatism, the collective term for all diseases marked by pain or stiffness in the joints, muscles and related structures. In six, arthritis (inflammation of the joints) is a symptom. The seventh classification, "nonarticular" (not involving the joints), is a catchall for many of the commonest forms. Of the seven, osteoarthritis and nonarticular rheumatism are the commonest (between them, more than 80% of all cases). Rheumatoid arthritis (10% to 20%) is the most crippling. Many patients have more than one form.

The one thing that all forms of rheumatism have in common is that they affect connective tissue. Despite its wide occurrence in the body, connective tissue* is still something of a mystery to medical researchers. And because rheumatism is a crippler rather than a killer, and victims drag out their lives undramatically, only meager funds have been allocated for research into its causes and cures. Recently research has been stepped up on a broad front. The result has been dramatic progress in some areas, but disappointingly little in others. The scoreboard:

Arthritis Due to Infections. Once a major cause of arthritis, infections by common bacteria (notably gonorrhea and tuberculosis) no longer give the rheumatologists much concern. The joint symptoms, like the underlying disease, can be treated swiftly and effectively with such drugs as the sulfas, antibiotics and isoniazid. Can now be cured in nearly every case.