While an emphasis on the new is vital to any science, the relevance or importance of new discoveries cannot truly be appreciated without a strong sense of the framework of a discipline, and of the ideas that helped to shape it. With this in mind, the editors of this book have attempted to create a canon of texts that formed the basis of rheumatology. Experts on the diagnosis and management of the various rheumatological conditions have chosen what they consider to be the key papers in their respective domains. Every paper is carefully described and evaluated by its strengths, its weaknesses, and its contribution to the field. Papers have been chosen that define new diseases or treatments, that have changed our whole way of thinking, or that have simply stood the test of time. The editors hope that the papers profiled in this volume will stimulate debate, encourage readers to seek out the original texts, and inspire the writers of the classics of the 21st century.
