Fürth, an ardent advocate of Umber’s hypothesis, emphasises the fact that Wiechowski was never able to detect any evidence of _uricolysis_ in the human body. Continuing, he observes, if we reject all idea of _uric acid retention in the tissues_, “It would be a particularly difficult thing to understand why gouty patients do not simply expel by a compensatory hyper-excretion the uric acid which is accumulated from a supposed failure of uricolysis; precisely as in leukæmia the patient compensates simply by an exaggerated excretion of the excessive uric acid which is mobilised in the body from the excessive purin decomposition.” His conclusion, therefore, is that, “_In the gouty individual there must exist some cause which makes a compensatory uric acid excretion impossible; and that is plainly a retention affinity of the tissues, because of which the uric acid is actually held in the tissues._” In light of Fine’s revelations the retention capacity of the bodily tissue for uric acid may, we take it, be considered as fairly well established. But, in view of the _precipitation or anchoring of urates in the tissues in gout_ it is most desirable that further investigations be made to discover whether in _gouty_ subjects the _tissue retention capacity_ for _uric acid_ is _enhanced_. “The impression,” says Fürth, “grows on one that this hitherto little considered factor, of an increased affinity of the tissues for uric acid in the gouty subject is very much closer to the real kernel of the gout problem than, for example, the question of the fixation of uric acid in the blood about which there has been so much contention, and with which of necessity we are compelled, at least, to some little extent to concern ourselves.” The results of modern researches tend to support this more catholic conception. We would recall that Lewis and his co-workers, seeking the source of the _increased endogenous purin excretion_ that follows ingestion of _purin-free_ food, were forced to reject the view that it was solely derived from katabolism of the _nuclear_ substance of the _digestive glands_, and to refer it instead to “wear and tear” of the _body cells as a whole_. Precisely the same change in attitude, we may remind our readers, has overtaken us in regard to the site of _urea_ formation, viz., that not only the _liver_ cells, but those of the muscles also participate in its production. While admitting that dogmatism is out of place, still to our mind this theory of _tissue retention_ makes strong appeal. In light of it the nebulous “gouty diathesis” seems on its way to become incarnate in some _inborn peculiarity_ of _tissue-function_, a falling short of full physiological activity, or, as M. Rendu termed it, a “_primordial vice of nutrition_.”