In 1805 Haygarth published his classical essay, “A Clinical History of the Nodosity of the Joints,” the opening sentence of which shows that, comparably with his successors, he lamented the laxity with which the term “rheumatism” was invoked and applied “to a great variety of disorders which beside pain, have but few symptoms that connect them together.” A purist in nosology, he equally deplored the term “rheumatick gout” as tending to perpetuate its confusion with gout and rheumatism, and suggested the term “Nodosities,” in the hope that “as a distinct genus it will become a more direct object of medical attention.” Alas, even as late as 1868 Trousseau deplored the retention of the term “rheumatic gout” by Garrod and Fuller and his own countryman Trastour. But, in common justice to Garrod, it must be allowed that in the third edition of his work he definitely applied the term _rheumatoid_ arthritis to the disorder in question. Nor can we refrain from recording Fuller’s words that “the natural history of _rheumatic gout_ accords but little with that of _acute rheumatism_, and is equally inconsistent with that of true gout.” CLEAVAGE OF ARTHRITIS DEFORMANS INTO TWO TYPES In reviewing the researches of the foregoing writers it will be clearly seen that though they did yeoman service in differentiating broadly _gout_ from the disorders grouped under _Arthritis Deformans_, there is little doubt that not for many years afterwards was their distinctiveness sufficiently realised. This may be in large part attributed to the fact that they still awaited the next great process of fission as applied to chronic joint disorders. I allude in the first place to Charcot’s momentous discovery of the _nerve arthropathies_, and secondly, to the cleavage of arthritis deformans into the _rheumatoid_ or _atrophic_, and the _osteoarthritic_ or _hypertrophic_ varieties. It is to Vidal that we are indebted for the first clinical description of the _atrophic_ type. Charcot in his lectures refers to it as the “Atrophic form of Vidal,” noting that in this variety “induration of the skin, a sort of scleroderma develops, the cutaneous covering is cold, pale, smooth, polished, and will not wrinkle, adding also that in such cases atrophy of the bones and muscles accompanies the wasting of the soft tissues.”