One view is that whilst the organs of the body can readily dispose of its
endogenous uric acid, or that produced by its own tissue change, together
with the small amount of uric acid derived from most foods, the organs are
strained by the larger quantity introduced in flesh-food or any other food
rich in purins: that there is an accumulation in the system of some of
this uric acid. Vegetable foods tend to keep the blood alkaline, flesh
possesses less of this property; alkalinity of the blood is thought to be
favourable to the elimination of uric acid, whilst anything of an acid
nature acts contrarily. Dr. Alexander Haig writes "I consider that every
man who eats what is called ordinary diet with butcher's meat twice a day,
and also drinks acid wine or beer, will, by the time he is 50, have
accumulated 300 to 400 grains of uric acid in his tissues, and possibly
much more; and about this time, owing to the large amount of uric acid in
his body, he will probably be subject to attacks of some form of gout or
chronic rheumatism." Dr. Haig ascribes to the presence of uric acid in the
system, not only gout and rheumatism, but epilepsy, hysteria, mental and
bodily depression, diseases of the liver, kidneys, brain, etc.

The opinion of the majority of eminent medical men, during recent years,
is that uric acid is not a cause, but a symptom of gout, that uric acid is
not an irritant to the tissues, and that it is readily excreted in the
healthy subject. Some of the reasons for this latter and against the
previously stated hypothesis, are as follows:--Birds very rarely suffer
from gout--the nodular concretions, sometimes found about their joints and
which have been ascribed to gout, are of tuberculous origin--yet their
blood contains more uric acid than that of man, and the solid matter of
their excretion is mainly urates. If uric acid caused gout we should
expect the disease to be common in birds. It is a remarkable fact that the
waste nitrogen should be excreted in the form of uric acid or urates from
such widely differing classes of animals as birds and serpents. Birds