combination with alkalies as urates, perhaps also with some organic body.
It has been shown that the blood of the gouty is not saturated with uric
acid, but can take up more, and that the alkalinity of the blood is not
diminished. The excess over the normal is in many cases small; it is said
to be absent in some persons, and rarely, if ever reaches the quantity
found in leukaemia. Leukaemia is a disease marked by an excessive and
permanent increase in the white blood corpuscles and consequent
progressive anæmia. Neither does the uric acid of gout reach the quantity
produced in persons whilst being fed with thymus gland (sweetbread), for
medical purposes. In neither of these cases are any of the symptoms of
gout present. In the urine of children, it is not unusual to find a
copious precipitate of urates, yet without any observed effect on them.

The symptoms of gout point to the presence of a toxin in the blood, and it
is this which produces the lesions; the deposition of urates in the joints
being secondary. This poison is probably of bacterial origin, derived from
decomposing fæcal matter in the large intestine. This is due to faulty
digestion and insufficient or defective intestinal secretions and
constipation. This explains why excessive feeding, especially of proteid
food, is so bad. The imperfectly digested residue of such food, when left
to stagnate and become a mass of bacteria and putrefaction, gives off
poisons which are absorbed in part, into the system. This bacterial poison
produces headache, migraine, gouty or other symptoms. Because of the
general failure of gouty persons to absorb the proper amount of nutriment
from their food, they require to eat a larger quantity; this gives a
further increase of fæcal decomposition and thus aggravates matters. The
voluminous bowel or colon of man is a legacy from remote pre-human
ancestors, whose food consisted of bulky, fibrous and slowly digested
vegetable matters. It was more useful then, than now that most of our food
is highly cooked. About a third part of the fæcal matter consists of