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5. A comparative study of gold and cyclophosphamide was started in this unit in December 1969. Sixty-seven patients with rheumatoid arthritis whose disease activity was not controlled by conventional therapy and who would, in the ordinary course of events, have been treated with gold have entered the study. All had completed their families, and were willing to enter a trial of this nature. By random selection the patient received either cyclophosphamide and dummy gold injections, or gold and dummy cyclophosphamide. The therapy was controlled by one physician, while the clinical state of the patient was regularly assessed by a second physician without knowledge of the active drug or of any side effects that had occurred. This report is on the first year of treatment of fifty patients