8 
further oxidation, into uric acid.® Thus, one factor in the amount 
of uric acid excreted is the extent to which these changes of hydroly- 
sis and oxidation occur. The other factor is the extent to which 
the uric acid so formed is further oxidized, for many organs have 
been sho^\m to contain an oxidase capable of destroying uric acid. 
Alcohol administered mth purin-containing foods increases the out- 
put of uric acid in the urine ^ and the accepted explanation of this is 
that this increased output occurs because the alcohol inhibits the 
oxidation of the uric acid. This explanation probably accords best 
wdth the facts at present kno^\m, especially if certain of the views of 
Burian and Schur in regard to the ‘^integral factor” be accepted. 
Still there are so many unknovm factors in nucleic acid metabolism ^ 
that another explanation of the effect of alcohol does not seem to be 
entirely impossible, namely, that alcohol increases the activity of the 
enzymes (hydrolytic or oxidizing, or both) by which the uric acid is 
formed or it might be supposed to accelerate the formation, in 
muscle, of hypoxanthin which is subsequently converted into uric 
acid. Further, on the explanation that alcohol inhibits the oxida- 
tion of uric acid, it is difficult to see why it should not inhibit that of 
endogenous origin also, for it is not believed that all of that formed 
is normally excreted.^ 
o These reactions are expressed by W. Jones in the folloTving scheme; 
Nucleic acid 
phosphoric acid, 
levulinic acid, 
pyi’imidine deriva- 
tives, carbohydrate. 
uric acid 
purin deriA’atives 
guanin 
03 
p 
p 
Q 
xanthin 
adenin 
p 
h\’poxanthin 
xantho-oxidase 
& Beebe, Amer. Jour. Physiol., v. 12, p. 13; 1904. Cf. also Eschenburg (Munch, 
med. AVoch., 1905, p. 2265), who obtained similar results with a patient suffering with 
gout; Rosenfeld, Einfluss des Alcohols auf den Organismiis; Pringsheim, Zeit. fur 
physikal. und diat. Therapie, v. 10, p. 284; 1906. 
c Kossell and Steudel, for example, have suggested that certain pyrimidine bodies 
may be converted into uric acid. 
Burian (Hoppe-Seyler’s Zeitschr., v. 43, p. 528; 1905) found tartronic, dialuric 
and salicylic acids to accelerate the conversion of purin bases into uric acid in extracts 
of the liver of the beef. Rockwood, at the December (1906) meeting of the American 
Chemical Society, reported experiments in which an increased output of endogenous 
uric acid was found to follow the administration of sodium salicylate. 
« In any case the experiments quoted above are not conclusive as regards the effects 
of the habitual use of alcohol, for they were made upon those unaccustomed to the use 
of alcohol and were of but a few days’ duration. In chronic alcoholism, Poliak (Dtsch. 
Arch. f. klin. Med., v. 88, p. 224; 1906) found a retention, or delayed excretion, of uric 
acid after the administration of nucleic acid. 
