New England Medical Monthly Volume 27, No. 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...of the disease, it would seem irrational to overburden the patient with additional purins (having no food value) and thus increase such accumulation. We know, too, from clinical experience, that the gouty individual is made worse if purin foods are introduced without stint. On the other hand, it has been repeatedly.demonstrated that a purin-free diet is beneficial in gout. There is fully as much reason for withholding the introduction of purins in gout, as for withholding sugar in diabetes. Moreover, it is well known that the gouty patient is best relieved by furnishing such medicinal means as will aid the system in oxidizing and eliminating purin waste. Again, we know that alcohol is injurious to the goutily inclined. The explanation furnished by the experimental physiologist of this phenomenon is somewhat as follows: Alcohol is distinctly toxic in its effect upon the liver, whose metabolic function in oxidizing purins is greatly retarded. In short, it has been proven that the introduction of purin foods, with alcohol, leads to the retention and accumulation of unoxidized uric acid in excess--the chief causative agency in gout. Gaillard's Southern Medicine, December, 1907. Lax Business Methods.--"Lax business methods are due to various causes. The inclinations and mental tendencies of most physicians run in the direction of strict professional work and not business. Business is more or less distasteful to them. The whole mind is occupied with the care of patients and the whole thought is given to that portion of his work, the alleviation of suffering. The busy doctor is so much driven and so harassed by practice that he neglects the business side of his profession--the collecting. Lack of business training is also a cause of improper business methods....