have a higher body temperature than man, they are very rapid in their
movements and consume a large amount of food proportionate to their
weight. They live, as it were, at high pressure. Serpents, on the other
hand, have a low body temperature, they are lethargic and can live a long
while without food. There is no obvious reason why some animals excrete
urea and others uric acid. As uric acid is a satisfactory and
unirritating form in which waste nitrogen is expelled from the body of the
active alert bird, as well as from the slow moving reptile, it is
surprising if a very much smaller quantity acts as a poison in man. Many
physicians are convinced that uric acid is absolutely unirritating. Uratic
deposits may occur to an enormous extent in gouty persons without the
occurrence of any pain or paroxysms. Urates have been injected in large
amounts into the bodies of animals as well as administered in their food
with no toxic result whatever, or more than purely local irritation. The
most careful investigations upon the excretions of persons suffering from
gouty complaints, have failed to show uric acid in the excretions in
excess of that in normal individuals, except during the later stage of an
acute attack. There is an excess of uric acid in the blood of gouty
subjects; some eminent medical men say it is in the highest degree
probable, that this excess is not due to over production or deficient
destruction, but to defective excretion by the kidneys. The excess may
arise from failure of the uric acid to enter into combination with a
suitable substance in the blood, which assists its passage through the
kidneys. Under the head of gout are classed a number of unrelated
disturbances in the gastro-intestinal tract and nutritive organs, whose
sole bond of union is that they are accompanied by an excess of urates,
and in well developed cases by deposits in the tissues. This is why there
are so many different causes, curative treatments, theories,
contradictions and vagaries in gout. There are good reasons for believing
that uric acid is not in the free state in the body. In the urine it is in