EFFECT OF MEAT DIET 187 



relative proportions. Here, too, therefore, the subject is 

 open to further study. 



Influence of Excessive Meat Diet. Along with alcohol- 

 ism and chronic lead poisoning, excessive ingestion of foods 

 rich in purin bodies, particularly meat, plays an important 

 part in the etiology of gout. Some evidence of this is to be 

 observed in the geographical distribution of this fault of 

 metabolism. In Japan, China, Arabia and the tropics, 

 where meat is but little used, the affection is apparently rare. 

 It is not common in southern Europe ; in middle Europe it 

 occurs more frequently, but in the countries lying about the 

 North Sea and the Baltic it is very frequently met, in Eng- 

 land and Holland being almost endemic. Perhaps the pref- 

 erence which Austrians show for boiled beef, which is gener- 

 ally disliked by the northerners, explains why gout is not 

 very common in Austria, as the purin-rich extractives 

 remain within the meat when it is roasted, but are removed 

 through boiling. For this reason well-boiled meat, provided 

 the broth is not included, presumably, may be considered as 

 food poor in purins. 



Protracted Feeding of Nucleinic Acid to Dogs. With 

 view of determining the effect of long-continued inundation 

 of the mammalian body with purin, the author's pupil, 

 Hirokawa 38 has carefully studied under direction the purin 

 metabolism of a dog fed very regularly with additions of nu- 

 cleinic acid for months. A small dog regularly fed on mixed 

 food was given daily five grams of sodium nucleinate for 

 three months without manifesting any strikingly harmful 

 result and without any loss of weight. However, a marked 

 change in the purin exchange was noted. Whereas in the 

 first part of the experiment out of the total purin- and allan- 

 toin-nitrogen the results showed 98.5 per cent, as allantoin 

 and only 1.5 per cent, as purin bases and uric acid together, 



88 W. Hirokawa, Biochem. Zeitschr., 26, 441, 1910; under the direction of 

 0. v. Fiirth. 



