Nine hundred and nineteen patients attending orthopaedic clinics in the rural areas of the Cotswolds and Chilterns were examined for evidence of Dupuytren's contracture. Five per cent of men and 3.5 per cent of women showed evidence of the disease which was largely bilateral but confined to the palm in forty per cent of men and eighty per cent of women. A positive correlation between repeated stretching of the palmar fascia and the presence of Dupuytren's contracture confined to the palm was established.