Aberdeen and the Enlightenment

important contributions made to British rheumatology by the Medical Research Council. As with so many well-meant volumes of this sort, the book becomes more than a trifle self-congratulatory. I have no doubt that in this country the Heberden Society was a much-needed stimulus to the development ofa group of professional rheumatologists, for whom the Society provided self-respect at a time when their speciality was held in low regard by such established disciplines as neurology or cardiology. Yet I would like, also, to have been told something of the undoubted scientific achievements of the distinguished members of the Heberden Society who represent the best in British rheumatology. Too often I am beset by a nagging doubt as to what through all these years has really been achieved for the sick and the suffering. Christopher Booth Clinical Research Centre, Harrow