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Page: History
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To delineate the history of rheumatoid arthritis a researcher must rely on scanty and ambiguous data from old medical literature and buried skeletons. The current consensus is too speculative for the taste of some scholars. Nevertheless a tentative best guess has emerged.
The first known traces of arthritis date back at least as far as 4500 BC. A text dated 123 AD first describes symptoms very similar to rheumatoid arthritis. It was noted in skeletal remains of Indians found in Tennessee. In the Old World the disease is vanishingly rare before the 1600s. and on this basis investigators believe it spread across the Atlantic during the Age of Exploration. In 1859 the disease acquired its current name.
A fascinating anamoly has been noticed from investigation of precolumbian bones. The bones from the Tennessee site show no signs of tuberculosis even though it was prevalent at the time throughout the Americas. Jim Mobley, at Pfizer, has discovered a historical pattern of epidemics of tuberculosis followed by a surge in the number of rheumatoid arthritis cases a few generations later. Mobley attributes the spikes in arthritis to selective pressure caused by tuberculosis. A hypervigilant immune system is protective against tuberculosis at the cost of an increased risk of autoimmune disease.
The art of Peter Paul Rubens may depict the effects of rheumatoid arthritis, based on the assumption that he used his own hands as a model. In his later paintings, his rendered hands show increasing deformity consistent with the symptoms of the disease.
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