He wrote that ‘It is clear that corticosteroids have a distinctly limited role in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis’ and that derivatives ‘share the major deterrent features of earlier corticosteroids.’ He only recommended drug treatment for patients with ‘disease of longer duration and in whom activity has not been controlled by an adequate trial of ... conservative measures.’ The drugs discussed were, in order: aspirin; phenylbutazone and oxyphenylbutazone; corticosteroids and ACTH; chloroquine and hydrochloroquine; and gold. This evidence concerns the gene POMC and rheumatoid arthritis.