History of books and journals and periodicals in rheumatology.

'Rheum' comes from the Greek-a 'watery discharge' (OED)-and rheumatological literature as we scan it today has had two main historical sources for its now ever faster running river of words: (a) the spa waters and hydrology from the Middle Ages onward, beautifully illustrated in mediaeval woodcuts, and (b) the more modern mainstream of general medicine itself, even more widely and more strongly flowing and with a lot of very fertile silt, which today has almost blocked its older tributary, except perhaps in middle Europe. There, those ancient waterways and spas still flourish, discharging their rheum with state support and the modern gloss of physical medicine, benefiting both doctors and also, perhaps, patients. The earlier medical publications were books: only later did journals appear, based originally on the transactions, proceedings, archives, and acta of the newly formed scientific societies, such as the Royal Society, 1665.