disease is reached, the patients cease to suffer pain, and are inconvenienced only by the deformities in the limbs, in which a considerable degree of motion may be retained. Remarkable deformities are seen in hands in which a considerable amount of usefulness still remains. Dyspepsia and anaemia are frequently associated with arthritis. Monarticular arthritis more particularly affects the aged; and when it affects the hip is known as morbus coxae senilis.
(2) The atrophic form of arthritis is not very common. The chief anatomical change is due to atrophy in the bone and cartilage. The disease occurs at an earlier period in life than the peri-articular form, from which the initial symptoms do not markedly differ; but the disorganization in the joint is greater, dislocations frequently occur, and ankylosis of the joints follows. This is the most serious form of arthritis.
(3) In the hypertrophic form the anatomical changes include the formation of new bone as well as changes in the cartilage. This new-bone formation may lead to progressive ankylosis in the joints. Should the vertebral column be affected a rigid condition of the spine. known as spondylitis deformans (“poker back”) may ensue. What are termed “Heberden’s nodes” are small hard knobs about the size of a pea frequently found upon the fingers near the terminal phalangeal joints; they rarely give rise to symptoms. Popularly ascribed to gout, these nodes are in reality a manifestation of arthritis.
(4) A variety of arthritis occurring in children is known as Still's disease; in which the swelling of the joints is associated with swelling of the lymph glands and of the spleen. The onset is often acute, with fever and rigors; sweating is profuse and the joints are enlarged and painful. There may be much muscular wasting and limitation of movement in the joints, and anaemia is associated with the disease.
The treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is rarely curative, once the disease has been permanently established; and it is therefore important to begin treatment before destructive changes have taken place in the joints. In the acute febrile form, which is frequently taken for rheumatism, the essential treatment is rest to the affected joints, with the application of oil of wintergreen; the joint should not be fixed but supported. In the more chronic forms medicinal treatments are usually of little value. Potassium iodide is useful in some cases by promoting absorption of the hypertrophied fibrous tissue, and guaiacol if administered for a sufficiently long time is said to be capable of arresting the disease, diminishing the size of the joint and helping movement. Where anaemia accompanies the disease iron and arsenic are of value. The general health of a patient suffering from rheumatoid arthritis must be maintained, and he should live upon a dry soil. Visits to Aix-les-Bains, Buxton, Bath or Droitwich, with their baths and shampooing, often prove useful, particularly when combined with gentle massage. It is a mistake to keep the joints entirely at rest in the chronic forms, as this tends to the formation of contractures and ankylosis. Moderate exercise without undue fatigue is desirable. Patients should go early to bed and have plenty of rest, sunshine and fresh air. It is important that the diet should be nourishing and plentiful, and should there be intestinal putrefaction fermented milk is useful. As regards the local treatment, it will be well in the majority of cases to determine by the X-rays the exact state of the affected joints. Radiant heat, vibration and hot-air baths are among the best treatments. The active hyperaemia induced by hot air favours restoration of movement and alleviates pain, but where there is pronounced destruction of bone and cartilage full restoration of a joint cannot take place. Systematic exercises of the joints tend to prevent the atrophy of the adjacent muscles, and Bier's passive hyperaemia induced by the temporary use of an elastic bandage has the same results. Should an X-ray photograph reveal the presence of spurs or loose bodies in the joints interfering with free movement their removal is called for. Sometimes the breaking down of adhesions under an anaesthetic is necessary, and gentle passive and later active movements of the joints should follow if freedom of use is to be gained. Recently treatment by radium has taken a definite place in the therapeutics of chronic arthritis, its analgesic properties seeming of great benefit. (H. L. H.)
RHEYDT, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province,
situated on the Niers, 19 m. W. of Dusseldorf, on the main
line of railway to Aix-la-Chapelle, and at the junction of lines
to Crefeld and Stolberg. Pop. (1905) 40,149. It has two
Roman Catholic and two Evangelical churches, a handsome
new town hall (1895), a gymnasium, and several technical
schools. The principal products of its numerous factories are
silk, cotton, woollen and mixed fabrics, velvet, iron goods,
machinery, shoes, cables, soap and cigars. Dyeing and finishing,
brewing and distilling, are also carried on. Rheydt is an ancient
place, but its industrial importance is of very recent growth,
and it only received municipal rights in 1856.
See Rheyter Chronik. Geschichte der Herrschaft und Stadt Rheydt (2 vols., Rheydt, 1897); and Strauss, Geschichte der Stadt Rheydt (Rheydt, 1897).
RHĪANUS, Greek poet and grammarian, a native of Crete, friend and contemporary of Eratosthenes (275–195 B.C.). Suīdas says he was at first a slave and overseer of a palaestra, but obtained a good education later in life, and devoted himself to grammatical studies, probably in Alexandria. He prepared a new recension of the Iliad and Odyssey, characterized by sound judgment and poetical taste. His bold atheteses are frequently mentioned in the scholia. He also wrote epigrams, eleven of which, preserved in the Greek anthology and Athenaeus, show elegance and vivacity. But he was chiefly known as a writer of epics (mythological and ethnographical), the most celebrated of which was the Messeniaca in six books, dealing with the second Messenian war and the exploits of its central figure Aristomenes, and used by Pausanias in his fourth book as a trustworthy authority. Other similar poems were the Achaica, Eliaca, and Thessalica. The Heracleia was a long mythological epic, probably an imitation of the poem of the same name by Panyasis, and containing the same number of books (fourteen).
Fragments in A. Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1843); for Rhianus's work in connexion with Homer, see C. Mayhoff, De Rhiani Studiis Homericis (Dresden, 1870); also W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898).
RHIGAS, CONSTANTINE, known as Rhigas of Velestinos (Pherae), or Rhigas Pheraios (1760–1798), Greek patriot and poet, was born at Velestinos, and was educated at Zagora and at Constantinople, where he became secretary to Alexander Ypsilanti. In 1786 he entered the service of Nicholas Mavrogenes, hospodar of Wallachia, at Bucharest, and when war broke out between Turkey and Russia in 1787 he was charged with the inspection of the troops at Craiova. Here he entered into close and friendly relations with a Turkish officer named Osman Passvan-Oglou (1758–1807), afterwards the famous governor of Widin, whose life he saved from the vengeance of Mavrogenes. After the death of his patron Rhigas returned to Bucharest to serve for some time as interpreter at the French Consulate. At this time he wrote the famous Greek version of the Marseillaise, well known in Byron's paraphrase as “sons of the Greeks, arise.” He was the founder of the Hetaireia, a society formed to organize Greek patriotic sentiment and to provide the Greeks with arms and money. Believing that the influence of the French Revolution would spread to the Near East, he betook himself to Vienna to organize the movement among the exiled Greeks and their foreign supporters in 1793, or possibly earlier. He published in Vienna many Greek translations of foreign works, and presently founded a Greek press there, but his chief glory was the collection of national songs which, passed from hand to hand in MS., roused patriotic enthusiasm throughout Greece. They were only printed posthumously at Jassy in 1814. While at Vienna Rhigas entered into communication with Bonaparte, to whom he sent a snuff-box made of the root of a laurel tree taken from the temple of Apollo, and eventually he set out with a view to meeting the general of the army of Italy in Venice. But before leaving Vienna he forwarded papers, amongst which is said to have been his correspondence
