Now, as to pain and tenderness, it is a blessed feature of gouty arthritis that, generally speaking, in the chronic forms pain becomes much attenuated. But let us at the same time recollect that syphilitic arthritis, both secondary and tertiary, is relatively painless. But it is the much rarer tertiary form, be it remembered, which is usually monarticular. By the bye, too, we should never forget that a Charcot’s joint is also painless.
Coming now to the objective phenomena, is the case predominantly one of peri-articular infiltration or intra-articular effusion? As to the former, while you never know, still tuberculous joint disease is exceptionally rare at the age at which we usually meet gout. On the other hand, gummatous synovitis, with or without osteoperiostitis, is occasionally met with. It is just such a case as this that may be confounded with gout, the irregular lumpy thickening of the sub-synovial tissues with effusion being wrongly attributed to a gouty process with uratic deposits. Do not be misled if a history of injury be forthcoming in such cases, for it is not uncommon and may be given in good faith.
Now what if synovial effusion of chronic or recurring form be the striking objective feature of the case under review? In this event always recollect that of all the causes of monarticular disorder injury is far and away the most frequent. Not a few cases of monarticular joint disease come annually to the Royal Mineral Water Hospital, Bath, under the diagnosis of “gout” and “rheumatism.” But in all too many the symptoms are referable in truth to ligamentary strain, displaced cartilage, or foreign bodies, lesions always to be sought for and excluded in monarticular joint affection. Duckworth has it that hydrarthrosis is met with in chronic articular gout, in his deforming variety. He states that “hydrarthrosis is less commonly due to gout than to rheumatism,” but, we would remark, apart from traumatic lesions, more commonly due to gonorrhœa or syphilis than to either of them.
But the reader may say, this dissertation notwithstanding, Where does gout come in? Precisely so, and if his experience tallies with mine, he will find that chronic articular gout localised in one of the larger joints, and one only, is exceptionally rare. Personally, I should never feel justified in making the diagnosis unless I had elicited a history of (1) recurring classic outbreaks in the great toe with (2) an absence of traumatic infective and nerve arthropathies and, on the other hand, (3) demonstrable existence of uratic deposits in situ in the peri-articular tissues, the cartilage or bones as revealed by skiagraphy, or in the related bursæ.
In conclusion, if all these various pitfalls have been avoided, it will almost without exception be found that the final differentiation in doubtful cases will rest between gout and osteoarthritis; and in the vast majority, I had almost said all, it is the latter morbid process that will be found responsible.
This all too lengthy disquisition will not have been in vain if it instil caution. For it is in the monarticular types of joint affection that errors of catastrophic proportion occur more commonly than in any other form of joint disorder.
Chronic Gout of Oligo-articular Distribution
The course of chronic articular gout, as has been observed, may be chequered by acute outbreaks involving three, four, or more of the larger joints. But, apart from this, there are those so-called asthenic and afebrile types of gout in which two or more joints may be the seat of a chronic gouty arthritis. In my experience it is the knees that are most frequently attacked. The joints are enlarged, the seat of more or less effusion, but the distinctive feature is the presence of deformity due to the irregularly rounded or ovoid swellings produced by uratic deposits. Enlargement of the patellæ is also present, and they lose their sharp edges, and sometimes they as well as the neighbouring articular ends are studded with small bony outgrowths, but of minimal size compared with those met with in osteoarthritis. The related bursæ, too, are often the seat of deposits, a valuable clue to diagnosis. Needless to say, such marked cases are nearly always the outcome of oft-repeated attacks, the ultimate deformity being the result of successive accretions of urate of soda laid down in the trail of the exacerbations.
Its Confusion with Chronic Villous Synovitis
The frequency with which this misconception occurs is very noticeable. If a middle-aged woman of florid complexion and corpulent habit begins to complain of pain and stiffness in her knees with more or less swelling thereof, there is a very prevalent tendency to attribute not only her joint disorder to gout, but any gastric or nervous symptoms that she may simultaneously complain of are translated as being confirmatory of the assumption. It gathers weight too from the traditional and widespread belief that “the change of life” is the period par excellence at which women develop the morbid vagaries associated with “irregular gout.”