Abstract
The rheumatoid factor (RF) is by many authors considered to be one of the components of immune complexes occurring in rheumatoid arthritis (RA)1,2. These immune complexes have been said to be the primary cause of the disease3,4. If this was true, the RF must, of course occur earlier than the onset of other symptoms of RA. In order to disentangle this, it seemed necessary to determine the time of the occurrence of RF in relation to the time for the onset of other symptoms of the disease. This was possible in cases with an acute onset. The observations showed that the RF did not appear earlier than 3 weeks after the onset of clinical symptoms and often much later5. The same was the case as to arthritis experimentally provoked in rats by injections6,7 of streptococci, group B (Figure 37.1).
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