358 E VOL UTION AND DISEASE. 



racters, for these deposits consist of a crystalline sub- 

 stance resembling guanin and urate of soda, and respond- 

 ing to the murexide test. Guanin and urate of soda are 

 closely allied bodies, and as far as I can ascertain it is no 

 easy task to decide between them. Until the subject 

 has been more thoroughly investigated it will remain 

 uncertain whether the nodular lesions of parrots and 

 other birds are really of the same nature as gout in man, 

 or allied to guanin gout of the hog, and it is very 



FIG. 125. The feet of a Parrot with supposed gouty nodules. 



probable that some case of supposed uratic gout in man 

 may be guanin gout. 



This confounding of avian and human gout, and 

 trichinosis with the guanin gout of the hog, is easy to com- 

 prehend, as it requires chemical cunning to complete the 

 identity, but we must remember that true gout was 

 formerly, and is now, often confounded with a disease 

 of the articular ends of bone, which, though often referred 

 to as rheumatic gout, has no relation with gout, except 

 that both diseases are distinguished by nodules on the 



