186 PATHOLOGY OF PURIN METABOLISM 



Kodenstein after liquidation of his villages "had the gout in 

 his neck from too many malmseys, " down to the present 

 time. We have no knowledge of how alcoholism disturbs the 

 purin metabolism. According to Beebe 32 it is the exogenous 

 fraction of the purins, according to London 33 the endogenous 

 as well, which bears the brunt. The^latter believes that de- 

 struction of cellular nucleins is heightened by the toxic effect 

 of the alcohol. L. Pollak, 34 in metabolism experiments in 

 the clinic of Friedrich v. Miiller, observed a retention and 

 retarded elimination of uric acid in alcoholics, such as we 

 customarily regard as characteristic of the uric acid meta- 

 bolism of the gouty ; which serves to indicate the close rela- 

 tionship existing between alcoholism and gout. Why the 

 excretion is retarded, however, is as much a puzzle in the 

 one case as in the other. If, as we have done before, we 

 speak of an "increased retention effort of the tissues, " we 

 are practically throwing aside the humoral gout theories. 

 There is, however, no occasion to pretend either to ourselves 

 or to others that this is the same thing as a real explanation. 

 Chronic Plumbism. In cases of chronic lead poisoning 

 Schittenhelm and Brugsch 35 found the endogenous uric acid 

 reduced markedly ; while Preti 36 found the absolute quantity 

 of excreted purin-base nitrogen above normal in three cases 

 of chronic plumbism. In rabbits in Julius Pohl 's laboratory 37 

 with chronic lead poisoning there was invariably met an in- 

 crease in the nitrogen fraction representing the purin group, 

 this often advancing in a striking manner on increasing the 

 intoxication. However, the uric acid manifested no such 



S. P. Beebe (Yale Univ., New Haven), Amer. Jour, of Physiol., 12, 13, 

 1904. 



38 A. Landau, Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 95, 280, 1909; cf. also Jahresber. 

 f. Tierchem., 38, 639, 1908. 



**L. Pollak (F. v. Miiller's Clinic, Munich), Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 88, 

 224, 1906. 



35 A. Schittenhelm and Th. Brugsch, Zeitschr. f. exper. Pathol., 4, 494, 1907. 



** Preti, Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 95, 411, 1909. 



"Rambousek (J. Pohl's Lab., Prague), Zeitschr. f. exper. Pathol., 7, 1910, 

 8. A, 



