Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease characterized by chronic, non-suppurative inflammation of multiple joints. The disease often starts in small joints and is mostly symmetrical. It affects the synovial membrane of joints first, and then erodes the cartilage and bone tissue of joints, resulting in the destruction of joint structures, joint deformities, and loss of functions, and also damages the heart, lungs, kidneys, nerves and other internal organs, resulting in multi-system damage. The etiology of rheumatoid arthritis has not yet been fully elucidated, and it is now believed that the disease is related to a variety of factors such as genetic factors, infectious factors, sex hormone levels and the basic secretion of glucocorticoids in the body. The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in China is 0.3%, and it is more common in middle-aged women and about three times more common in women than in men. Rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis (rheumatic fever) are two completely different diseases, with the former occurring mostly in adults and the latter in school-age children and adolescents; the cause of the former is still unclear, while the latter is caused by streptococcal infection. The Chinese medical term “paralysis” and the folk term “rheumatism” refer to many diseases with bone, joint and muscle symptoms, and are different from rheumatoid arthritis, of which rheumatoid arthritis is only one kind.