In regard to the incidence of gout, its greater prevalence in _temperate_ as opposed to tropical climes, and the disparities between different countries, it would be unsafe to assume that the variations are the outcome solely of _climate_. Thus the immunity of, _e.g._, strict Mohammedans is attributable in part to their sobriety and the less highly nitrogenous character of their food. But, if seduced into the ways of the “infidel,” their exemption, it is said, ceases. Europeans, of “gouty” heritage, may, if temperate, escape gout when resident in the tropics, otherwise they fall victims thereto just as surely as at home. Gout, indeed, is more a matter of _morals_ than climate. In the palmy days of the Roman Empire, when luxury and indolence were rampant, gout flourished, but declined following the installation of a republican form of government. In like fashion and for similar reasons, the inhabitants of modern Greece suffer infinitely less from the ravages of gout than of yore. In short, the climate of Italy and Greece has presumably endured unchanged, but the “habits” of their peoples have altered. Formerly it was held that the incidence of gout in any country or district varied according as to whether the population drank wine and malt liquors, or distilled spirits. Where the taste for the latter predominated, the disease was relatively rare, whence the comparative immunity of Scotland, Russia, Poland, and Denmark. But what of the rarity of gout in the wine-producing country Spain? Nor for that matter have I ever seen it claimed that gout was especially prevalent in Portugal, the home of “port,” that _bête noir_ of the “gouty.” In truth, dogmatism is here out of place, for though overeating and overdrinking are undeniably important factors in eliciting gout, they are not the _sole_ factors. In reviewing the statements made as to the geographical distribution and the race incidence of gout it is but too manifest that they are largely provisional; indeed, such information as we do possess as to its relative frequency in various countries, must be taken _cum grano salis_. Thus, who can doubt that the various affirmations must have been very largely influenced by the “personal equation,” that what one authority would define as gout would by another be deemed inadmissible to this category. Moreover, many of the original statements were made at a time when the differentiation of arthritic disorders, as we now know it, was but in its infancy. For obvious reasons, therefore, no researches in this sphere can ever be satisfactory, until the opinion of the profession at home and abroad be crystallised into some definite pronouncement, some precise definition, of the exact criteria by which the diagnosis of gout stands or falls.