• Osteoarthritis
• Arthritis
• Arthritis, Rheumatoid

EULAR is celebrating its 75-year anniversary after the foundation in 1947. ARD is contributing to this celebration by presenting a series of previously published articles that highlight the development of rheumatology over these 75 years. Comments to the first four selected papers published in 1947 appear in this issue.

Importantly, one of these papers presents a brief report from the first European congress of rheumatology, held in Copenhagen in 1947. It is, therefore, also important that the anniversary congress in 2022 is organised in the same city. The foundation of EULAR in 1947 is also described in the introduction to this report. At that time, the International League against Rheumatism (ILAR) was the global umbrella organisation and a European section was formed ‘on the same lines as the Pan-American section established during the war’. Later, ILAR also included the Asian and Pacific League against Rheumatism and the African League. ILAR organised separate international congresses, the last in Edmonton in 2001, and its organisation, role and by-laws were changed around 2006. Today, each of these four ‘leagues’ is organising their own congress, in addition to the congress organised by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

The congress report illustrates that the rheumatologists also at that time had a broad focus on musculoskeletal diseases, even if some topics will not be recognised as important by younger rheumatologists today, for example, antistreptolysin antibodies. It is also mentioned that a full session addressed treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by gold salts and chemotherapy, and that ‘new work reported by Svartz (Sweden) on treatment of arthritis with sulphonamides still …