On the relation of uric acid excretion to diet / by F. Gowland Hopkins and W.B. Hope.

  • Frederick Hopkins
Date:
[1898?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation of uric acid excretion to diet / by F. Gowland Hopkins and W.B. Hope. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to have proved experimentally was that under special circumstances an increase of uric acid in the urine runs parallel with an increase of leucocytes in the blood. For the theory to hold good, destruction of these cells and the liberation of nucleins or precursors of uric acid must be proved to go on simultaneously, and that this actually occurs Mares held to be a hypothesis only \ But much more direct evidence against the existence of any universal causal relation between digestive leucocytosis and uric acid increase is obtained from experiments in which a special dietary is used. We shall quote experiments later which show that under some circumstances a well-marked digestive leucocytosis may occur after a non-nitrogenous meal, which is quite unassociated with any rise of uric acid. Many observers have found that after the ingestion of egg-white, there is little or no rise of the acid2, while others have shown that the digestion of this proteid is associated with marked increase in the circulating leucocytes3. This subject is dealt with further in a special section of this paper. It is sufficient to remark here that such facts as those already detailed have led many to look upon the post-prandial increase of uric acid as originating directly from the nucleins taken with the meal; and the correctness of this view has been held proved by the familiar experi¬ ments which have demonstrated the occurrence of a strikingly large increase of the uric acid during the use of thymus-gland as a diet. The uric acid is looked upon in this later view as arising immediately from the breakdown of the ingested nucleins independently of any intermediary leucocytosis. But if this be so the observations of Mares become of greater interest; for it is remarkable that an excretive taking origin from the least digestible of the proteid constituents of the diet,—upon which gastric digestion itself has but a minimal influence,—should appear during the earlier, rather than during the later, hours of the post¬ prandial nitrogen tide. It seemed to us therefore of some importance to repeat the experiments of Mares upon a larger number of individuals. His results if established would show that the digestion of nucleins in the body differs greatly from the process in vitro, or would suggest that the breakdown of these special proteids is not the whole history of uric acid production. 1 Cf. Milroy and Malcolm. This Journal, xxm. p. 218. 1898. 2 Hess and Schmoll. Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pliar. xxxvn. p. 243, 1896. 3 Pohl. Ibid. xxv. pp. 31—50,
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