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.

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    III.—Nervous disturbance regarded as the PRIMARY CAUSE OF GOUT. The view that gout is intimately connected with disturbances of the nervous system has many supporters. Cullen, the great opponent of the humoral theory in the latter half of the last century, considered that gout mainly depended on an affection of the nervous centres. Sir Dyce Duckworth,* while accepting the view, as previously mentioned, that uric acid has some connection with gout, considers that gout is primarily depen- dent on a functional disorder of a definite tract of the nervous system, and that the part specially involved is possibly situated in the medulla oblongata, where it may be that there is a trophic centre for the joints. One reason that Sir Dyce Duckworth gives for considering this possible is the relationship of gout to diabetes, the consider- ation of which has led him to the belief that the portions of the nervous system involved in the two diseases cannot be far apart from one another. In consequence of this disorder of the neurotrophic system defects of nutrition arise which not only cause undue formation of uric acid, but also inhibit the normal destruction of that body in the tissues ; at the same time the renal excre- tory power for uric acid appears to be tempo- rarily inhibited as part of the process of the gouty paroxysm. Sir Dyce Duckworth, therefore, regards gout as