The self‐reported frequency of genitourinary and bronchopulmonary infections in postmenopausal women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and in postmenopausal women with osteoarthritis and/or soft tissue rheumatism was compared. Neither before, nor after the onset of joint disease was a higher frequency reported by the RA patients. The previously established increased mortality from infectious disease among RA patients might be due to a more severe infectious disease course, leading to an increased case‐fatality rate.

A brother and sister with multifocal recurrent periostitis are presented. Their disease started at an early age and manifested itself as an episodic migrating arthropathy. At roentgenography, reversible solid periosteal reactions were visible along large tubular bones. Scintigraphic and histological investigations revealed a sterile osteitis and thickened periosteum, but there was no indication of a viral infection. The girl experienced spontaneous amelioration after puberty; the boy improved markedly on colchicine.

A native from Surinam (South America), known to have a chronic gonarthritis for 20 years, died from an acute disseminated histoplasmosis. His gonarthritis was retrospectively shown to have been due to histoplasmosis. Although histoplasmosis rarely presents as a monarthritis, unacquaintance with this entity may result in fatal acute dissemination of the histoplasmosis.

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