FORMATION OF URIC ACID. 701 



water l and of alkalies. 2 Certain medicines, such as quinine and atro- 

 pine, diminish, while others, such as pilocarpine and, as it seems, salicylic 

 acid, 3 increase the elimination of uric acid. 



There is much diversity of opinion regarding the elimination of uric 

 acid in disease, 4 although it is known that it is increased after an abun- 

 dant destruction of nucleated cells as in pneumonia, after the crisis, 

 and in leucaemia. In the latter in most cases not only is the elimina- 

 tion to the urea increased absolutely, but also relatively; and the relation 

 between uric acid and urea (total nitrogen calculated as urea) may in 

 lineal leucaemia even be 1:9, while under normal conditions, accord- 

 ing to different investigators, it is 1:50 to 70 to 100. As to the behavior 

 of uric acid in gout, authorities are by no means agreed. That the 

 blood contains uric acid in gout has been repeatedly shown, and 

 it is also found in this disease with a purine-free diet (BRUGSCH and 

 SCHITTENHELM) . According to these investigators a diminished enzy- 

 motic decomposition of uric acid occurs in the body in gout and this 

 causes the occurrence of uric acid in the blood and its accumulation in 

 certain tissues. Strong arguments against this view have been presented 

 by others such as WELLS and CORPER, MILLER and JoNES. 5 



Formation of Uric Acid in the Organism. Since HORBACZEWSKI 

 first showed that uric acid could be produced by oxidation from the 

 nuclein-rich spleen-pulp or nucleins outside of the body, he also showed 

 that nucleins when introduced into the animal body caused an increase 

 in the elimination of uric acid. These observations have been confirmed, 

 and at the same time developed by the work of a great number of investi- 

 gators, and we are sure that uric acid can be produced from purine 

 bases either outside or inside the animal body, and also that food rich 

 in nucleins (especially the thymus gland) increases the elimination of 

 uric acid. It is nevertheless true that a few investigators after intro- 

 ducing pure purine bases into the organism could not observe any essential 

 rise in the uric acid or its transformation products; still we have a large 

 number of recent investigations which positively show that nucleic acids, 

 as well as purine bases, when introduced into the animal body are trans- 

 formed in abundant quantities into uric acid in the body. c At present 



1 See Schondorff , Pfliiger's Arch., 46, which contains the pertinent literature. 



2 See Clar, Centralbl. f. d. rned. Wissensch., 1888; Haig, Journ. of Physiol., 8; and 

 A. Hermann, Arch. f. klin. Med., 43. 



3 See Bohland, cited from Maly's Jahresber., 26; Schreiber and Zaudy, ibid., 30. 



4 In regard to the extensive literature on the elimination of uric acid in disease 

 we must refer to special works on internal diseases. 



6 Brugsch and Schittenhelm, Zeitschr. f. exp. Path. u. Therp., 4; Wells and Corper, 

 Journ. of biol. Chem., 6; Miller and Jones, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 61. 



6 As it is not within the scope of this book to enter into a discussion of the numer- 

 ous researches on this subject, we will refer to Wiener, " Die Harnsaure," Ergebnisse 



