Again Laird, investigating the elimination of endogenous uric acid in a case of _chronic_ gout, noted that the output thereof was _sub-normal_, and, as Brugsch and Schittenhelm observed, the same presented marked _variations_. The leucocyte counts he found normal, but the phosphorus output and the acidity were sub-normal. Bloch again, while he agrees that endogenous purin excretion is usually below the average in _gouty_ subjects, found that the output thereof is at its minimum before an acute attack of gout. The foregoing observations would suggest that the _retention_ or delayed excretion of uric acid applies both to _exogenous_ and _endogenous_ purins. But, when we come to analyse the foregoing findings as to the variations in uric acid output, both in acute and chronic gout, one feels inclined to agree with O. Folin, “that the clinically useful contributions obtained by _urine analysis_ have not been very numerous.” Thus we cannot, on the basis of the _variations_ in _uric acid excretion_, presume to diagnose gout; in other words, if we take _urine analysis_ alone, it is extremely difficult to prove that the uric acid elimination in gout is really and truly abnormal. Our uncertainty, moreover, is the more pronounced when we realise that in some cases of _rheumatoid arthritis_, etc., there is a disturbance of _purin_ metabolism which in some of its features is reminiscent of that obtaining in typical gout. But, before proceeding to discuss this interesting resemblance, it will, we think, be convenient here to recall that the obliquities in metabolism found in gout are not wholly restricted to _uric acid_. OTHER ANOMALIES IN EXCRETION IN GOUT As Levene and Kristeller have shown, side by side with the delayed excretion of ingested purins, there occurs also a tardy elimination of the other nitrogenous products of protein food. Vogt observed that fluctuations in nitrogen retention and nitrogen loss are quite typical of gouty subjects. As to the why and wherefore, however, of this variability, it remains a mystery. Nor do we know the form in which the nitrogen is retained, though Vogt maintains that the uneliminated moiety takes the form of purin bodies. According to Brugsch, it is during the acute attacks of gout that the nitrogen loss reaches its zenith, and he suggests that the nitrogen retention in the inter-paroxysmal periods is in part compensatory. On the other hand, the gain in weight that ensues is not adequate to account for the sum total of the nitrogen retention; while, as before observed, in gout there occurs, not only retarded elimination of exogenous purins, but also of other nitrogenous products of protein food. Yet, according to Heffter, the ratio of _purin bases_ to uric acid is unaltered in the urine of gouty subjects.