[57] Clin. Soc. Trans., Vol. XI., p. 132, 1898.
[58] “Medical Ophthalmoscopy,” 3rd edition, p. 267.
[59] Practitioner, 1909, Vol. II., p. 61.
[60] Sydenham, discussing a milk diet, observes that “it has done good as long as it has been rigidly attended to. The moment, however, that the patient swerves from it a hair’s breadth, and the moment he betakes himself to the diet of a healthy man (no matter how mild and simple), the gout returns worse than ever.”
[61] “The lighter beers of Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia, appear to be harmless for the gouty unless taken immoderately. Residents in towns goutily disposed, leading sedentary lives, are seldom long tolerant even of light laager beer.”
[62] Sir Archibald Garrod has suggested that guaiacum has a distinct effect in reducing the amount of uric acid excreted, i.e., it was thought that the uric acid is eliminated in some other form, possibly hippuric acid. Accordingly Martindale and Westcott conducted investigations to determine whether this resin increases or decreases the elimination of uric acid from the human body.
A normal individual took guaiacum resin in 5-grain doses daily in the morning, and the uric acid was estimated in the urine the same afternoon. Hippuric acid was also estimated in specimens of the same urine by the method given by Allen, “Chemistry of Urine,” p. 186. After a day’s interval the acids were estimated on several days without administration of the drug. The two series were then repeated on the same lines after an interval. Seeing that the diet of the individual could not well be controlled in weighed amounts of food, as would strictly be necessary for an investigation of this kind, it was thought that to express the results in percentage ratios of uric acid to excess of solids (R.U.A.) over water might yield more comparable results.
Joulie employs this method of indicating the constituents of urine by ratios; cf. Vol. I., p. 736. Thus, taking a specimen of urine with the following “normal” factors in grams per litre:—
| Specific gravity | 1017·8 |
| Excess of solids over water | 17·8 |
| Physiological acidity in terms of H₂SO₄ | 0·849 |
| Total P₂O₄ | 2·083 |
| Cl | 6·865 |
| Urea | 18·75 |
| Uric acid | 0·416 |
| Hippuric acid | 1·3 |
| (mean). |
One may express the constituents as the following percentage ratios:—