Should this be the case, the great affinity existing between the course and symptoms of Gout and Rheumatism would be easily explained, there being in both disorders an impediment to the proper oxidation of lactic into carbonic acid. These things may be illustrated by a diagram, showing the results which are supposed to take place when the natural process is arrested at, or diverted from, any of its stages:—
Starch.
|+
|2
|a
|q
|=
Grape Sugar (Diabetes.)
|
|\
| \
| \+ O =
| \
| \
| \ Oxalic acid. (Oxaluria.)
|
|=
Lactic acid (Rheumatism.)
|
|\
| \
| \+ 2 Urea + O 6 =
| \ Uric acid + 10 aq. (Gout, and Lithiasis.)
|+
|O
|=
Carbonic acid.
Thus, at each of the two transitional stages, we might have one diseased condition produced by an arrest of the process, and another by its deviation. These deviations and stoppages may result from a failure of some natural principle which is gifted with the control and direction of the series of transformations; or they may simply be traceable to a want of vital energy, or nervous force.
The same ideas may be more distinctly expressed by a few chemical equations.
Natural process.
C12H10O10 + 2 HO = C12H12O12.
= 2 (C6H5O5, HO.)
C6H6O6 + O12 = 6 CO2 + 6 HO.
Oxaluria.
C12H12O12 + O18 = 6 C2O3 + 12 HO.
Gout and Lithiasis.
Lactic acid + 2 Urea + O5 = Uric acid + 10 HO.
The last equation may be thus proved at length:—
C6H6O6. C10H4O6N4.
C4H8O4N4.
O6. H10O10.
—————— ——————
C10H14O16N4. = C10H14O16N4.
It is next to be inquired how far the theoretical explanation of these diseases which has thus been sketched out can be applicable to the matter in which we are more immediately interested, viz., the action of the Catalytic remedies used to cure them.