188 PATHOLOGY OF PURIN METABOLISM 



the uric acid proportion gradually increased until after ten 

 weeks about ten times as much was being excreted as in the 

 first week on nucleinic acid (13 per cent, of the combined 

 purin nitrogen and allantoin nitrogen) . Coincident increase 

 of the purin bases was not appreciable. The results show 

 that the metabolism of the animal was influenced by long 

 continued flooding with the products of nucleinic acid cleav- 

 age in such a way that the ability of the dog's economy to 

 oxidize uric acid almost completely into allantoin was appar- 

 ently impaired, and a larger fraction of the former appeared 

 unchanged in excretion. However, there was no change in 

 the transformation of the purin bases into uric acid, only a 

 a minimal amount of the former appearing unchanged first 

 and last. 



Radium Therapy of Gout. Among the newer attempted 

 methods of cure of gout the use of radium for the moment 

 assumes the greatest interest; and it is undesirable to 

 pass it over without at least brief consideration. The basis 

 for its employment was developed in certain experiments of 

 Gudzent, 39 in the Clinic of W. His, upon the effect of radium 

 emanations upon the solubility of monosodium urate. As 

 previously mentioned Gudzent assumed that the monourate 

 of sodium in the blood may exist in two forms capable 

 of intertransformation by intramolecular rearrangements 

 (tautomeric forms), the lactam- and the lactim-forms, the 

 former of which, ins table and the more soluble of the 

 two, tends to change into the relatively more insoluble 

 and stable lactim. It is claimed that radium rays are not 

 only capable of inhibiting this conversion but of causing 

 the relatively more insoluble salt to revert to the more 

 soluble form, 40 and of catabolizing the uric acid in turn 



"F. Gudzent (His's Clinic, Berlin), Med. Klin., 1909, No. 37, p. 1381; 

 Deutsch. ined. Wochenschr., 1909, 921 ; 27th Intern. Kongress, Wiesbaden, 1910, 

 p. 539; Med. Klin., 1910, No. 42 ; Therapie d. Gegenw., 1910, 529; Zeitschr. f. 

 arztliche Fortbildung, 8, 198, 1911. 



>Cf. H. Bechhold and J. Ziegler, Berliner klin. Wochenschr., 191 0, 712; 

 Biochem. Zeitschr., 20, 189, 1909. 



