CONNECTIVE TISSUE DISEASE

any of the diseases that affect human connective tissue. They include, among many others, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatic fever, and osteoarthritis. Additional reading Detailed accounts of the connective tissue diseases and of the rheumatic disorders in general may be found in W.S.C. Copeman (ed.), Textbook of the Rheumatic Diseases, 4th ed. (1969); and James A. Boyle and W. Watson Buchanan, Clinical Rheumatology (1971). Victor A. McKusick, Heritable Disorders of Connective Tissue, 3rd ed. (1966), is an authoritative text dealing with the genetically transmitted connective tissue diseases. Ian R. MacKay and F. MacFarlane Burnet, Autoimmune Diseases (1963), was one of the first to clearly formulate and champion the role of autoimmunity in the connective tissue diseases and a number of other maladies of obscure etiology. Max Samter (ed.), Immunological Diseases, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1971), describes the mechanisms whereby aberrant immunity leads to tissue damage. Briefer, clinically oriented accounts may be found in Michael Mason and Harry L.F. Currey (eds.), An Introduction to Clinical Rheumatology (1970), and the Primer on the Rheumatic Diseases, 7th ed. (1972). Edmund L. Dubois (ed.), Lupus Erythematosus (1966), provides an exhaustive summary of the condition that has been influential in the development of the modern concept of connective tissue disease. See also Bernard M. Wagner, Raul Fleischmajer, and Nathan Kaufman (eds.), Connective Tissue Diseases (1983).