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 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