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.

    46/272 (page 34)
    down to 50 c.c.; this liquid was filtered, allowed to cool, and then submitted to the Gowland-Hopkins process for the estimation of uric acid. On adding known quantities of uric acid to different specimens of blood—which I had previously proved to be free from uric acid by the murexide test—and then submitting them to this process, I was able to extract from 80-87 per cent, of the uric acid, but the whole of the uric acid could never be extracted from the blood residue. Various solvents were tr'ed in place of the distilled water, such as dilute solutions of sodium acetate, potassium acetate, sodium phosphate, borax, sodium carbonate, etc., in the hope of being able to extract all the uric acid from the blood, but I was unable to find any solvent that acted better than the distilled water. This process that has just been described is the one that I employed, in conjunction with the murexide test, in all the examinations of the various kinds of blood for uric acid, which will be subsequently referred to. THE SOURCES OF URIC ACID. Admitting then an excess of uric acid in the blood in the form of quadriurate or biurate, and that its deposition therefrom as the sodium biurate in cartilages and other tissues is the direct exciting- cause of a gouty paroxysm, the two questions that naturally arise are : (1) Where is the uric acid formed ? (2) How is the uric acid formed? I believe that uric acid is formed in connection with some diseases, notably blood