Gout, its pathology, forms, diagnosis and treatment / by Arthur P. Luff.

  • Luff, Arthur P. (Arthur Pearson), 1855-1938.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Gout, its pathology, forms, diagnosis and treatment / by Arthur P. Luff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    directly with the amount of proteid food), and (2) the reaction of the intestinal contents. As long as the contents are acid, bacterial growth is inhibited, but when, owing to gastric or intestinal dyspepsia, the intestinal secretion is changed, the reaction of the intestinal contents changes, and great increase in the number of intestinal bacteria takes place, while at the same time their pathogenicity is increased. Therefore, the growth of bacteria in the intestinal tract and their pathogenicity will vary directly with the amount of proteid food and the amount of catarrh present. These facts obviously have a great bearing on the treat- ment of gout, and explain how it is that excess of proteid food, and those forms of alcohol which tend to produce intestinal catarrh, have such a strong influence on the production of gout. As regards the amounts of proteid, fat, and carbo- hydrate that the ordinary individual of average body weight needs during the twenty-four hours to satisfy the normal nutritive requirements of the body, it may be answered in a general way that he requires enough of these foodstuffs to establish physiological and nitrogenous equilibrium, suffi- cient, that is, to keep up the strength of body and mind that is essential to good health, to maintain the highest degree of physical and mental activity with the smallest amount of friction and the least expenditure of energy, and to pre- serve and heighten if possible the ordinary resistance of the body to disease germs. Chittenden’s opinion is that the smallest amount of food that will accomplish these ends is the ideal diet. There must be enough to supply the true needs of the body, but any great surplus over and above what is really called for may in the long run prove an undesirable addition. It is therefore necessary to have definite and precise knowledge of the amount of proteid, and of the total calorific value, needed to maintain the body in the highest state of efficiency, before any very