Gout : its pathology and treatment / by Arthur P. Luff.

  • Arthur P. Luff
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gout : its pathology and treatment / by Arthur P. Luff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/272 (page 15)
    ebstein's experiments with urates. It is on the second class of experiments that Ebstein depends for proof of his assumption that the neutral sodium urate is capable of acting as a chemical irritant to the tissues, and of pro- ducing in them the necrotising changes which subsequently lead to complete necrosis of the affected areas of the implicated tissues. In order to show that a combination of uric acid with sodium acted as an irritant, Ebstein took a saturated solution, prepared at 100° F., of uric acid in a 5 per cent, solution of sodium phosphate, and injected it into the peritoneal cavity, into the kidney, into the anterior chamber of the eye, into the cartilage of the ear, and into the cornea of a rabbit. Powdered uric acid was also introduced by insufflation into the conjunctival fold of one eye. Very appreciable changes were produced in the cornea only, and it was in this structure that Ebstein studied what he considers were the irritant or toxic effects of uric acid. He found that these injections produced a modified form of inflammation in the tissues of the cornea. As a control experiment he injected into the cornea of the other eye a simple solution of sodium phos- phate, or water containing calcined magnesia in suspension, neither of which produced any inflam- matory changes. He therefore inferred that the inflammatory changes were set up in the cornea by the urate in solution acting as a chemical irritant.