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FORMATION OF URIC ACID. 701
water l
and of alkalies.2
Certain medicines, such as quinine and atro-
pine, diminish, while others, such as pilocarpine and, as it seems, salicylic
acid,3
increase the elimination of uric acid.
There .is much diversity of opinion regarding the elimination of uric
acid in disease,4
although it is known that it is increased after an abun-
dant destruction of nucleated cells as in pneumonia, after the crisis,
and in leucaemia. In the latter in most cases not only is the elimina-
tion to the urea increased absolutely, but also relatively ; and the relation
between uric acid and urea (total nitrogen calculated as urea) may in
lineal leucaemia even be 1 : 9, while under normal conditions, accord-
ing to different investigators, it is 1:50 to 70 to 100. As to the behavior
of uric acid in gout, authorities are by no means agreed. That the
blood contains uric acid in gout has been repeatedly shown, and
it is also found in this disease with a purine-free diet (Brugsch and
Schittenhelm). According to these investigators a diminished enzy-
motic decomposition of uric acid occurs in the body in gout and this
causes the occurrence of uric acid in the blood and its accumulation in
certain tissues. Strong arguments against this view have been presented
by others such as Wells and Corper, Miller and Jones.5
Formation of Uric Acid in the Organism. Since Horbaczewski
first showed that uric acid could be produced by oxidation from the
nuclein-rich spleen-pulp or nucleins outside of the body, he also showed
that nucleins when introduced into the animal body caused an increase
in the elimination of uric acid. These observations have been confirmed,
and at the same time developed by the work of a great number of investi-
gators, and we are sure that uric acid can be produced from purine
bases either outside or inside the animal body, and also that food rich
in nucleins (especially the thymus gland) increases the elimination of
uric acid. It is nevertheless true that a few investigators after intro-
ducing pure purine bases into the organism could not observe any essential
rise in the uric acid or its transformation products; still we have a large
number of recent investigations which positively show that nucleic acids,
as well as purine bases, when introduced into the animal body are trans-
formed in abundant quantities into uric acid in tho body.6 At present
1
See Schondorff. Pfliiger’s Arch., 46, which contains the pertinent literature.
2
See Clar, Centralbl. f. d. ined. Wissensch., 1888; Haig, Journ. of Physiol., 8; and
A. Hermann, Arch. f. klin. Med., 43.
3
See Bohland, cited from Maly’s Jahresber., 26; Schreiber and Zaudy, ibid., 30.
* In regard to the extensive literature on the elimination of uric acid in disease
we must refer to special works on internal diseases.
6
Brutisch and Schittenhelm, Zeitschr. f. exp. Path. u. Therp., 4; Wells and Corper,
Journ. of biol. Chem., 6; Miller and Jones, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 61.
6
As it is not within the scope of this book to enter into a discussion of the numer-
ous researches on this subject, we will refer to Wiener, " Die Harnsiiure," Ergebnisse
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