Dr. Haig condemns pulse and some other vegetable foods, because, he says, they contain uric acid.  Pulse, he states, contains twice as much as most butcher’s meat.  Vegetable foods, however, contain no uric acid and meat but a very small quantity.  The proper term to use is purins or nucleins.  Dr. Haig has used a method of analysis which is quite incapable of giving correct results.  Many vegetarians have accepted these figures and his deductions therefrom, and have given up the use of valuable foods in consequence.  We therefore give some of the analyses of Dr. I. Walker Hall, from “The Purin Bodies in Food Stuffs.”  The determination of the purins has proved a very difficult process.  Dr. Hall has devoted much time to investigating and improving the methods of others, and his figures may be accepted with confidence.

The first column of figures indicates purin bodies in parts per 1,000, the second column purin bodies in grains per pound:—­

Sweet bread 10.06 70.4
Liver 2.75 19.3
Beef steak 2.07 14.5
Beef Sirloin 1.30 9.1
Ham 1.15 8.1
Chicken 1.3 9.1
Rabbit 0.97 6.3
Pork Loin 1.21 8.5
Veal loin 1.16 8.14
Mutton 0.96 6.75
Salmon 1.16 8.15
Cod 0.58 4.07
Lentils and haricots 0.64 4.16
Oatmeal 0.53 3.45
Peameal 0.39 2.54
Asparagus (cooked) 0.21 1.50
Onions 0.09 0.06
Potatoes 0.02 0.1

The following showed no traces of purins:  white bread, rice, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower and eggs.  Milk showed a very small quantity, and cheese consequently must contain still less.

The researches of Dr. Hall show that the purins of food are metabolised or broken down by gouty patients, almost as well as by normal individuals, any slight retention being due to increased capillary pressure.  A portion of the purins remain undigested, the quantity depending upon the particular purin and the vigour of the digestive organs.  Two rabbits had the purin hypoxanthin given to them daily, in quantities which if given to a man in proportion to his weight, would have been 17 and 3 grains respectively.  These rabbits showed malnutrition, and after death degenerative changes were visible in their liver and kidneys.  Dr. Hall has made a large number of personal experiments, and says that when he has taken large doses of purin bodies—­such as 7 grains of hypoxanthin, 15 to 77 grains of guanin or 7 to 15 grains of uric acid, apparently associated symptoms of general malaise and irritability have frequently appeared.  In gouty subjects such moderate or small quantities of purins which are without effect on the healthy subject, may prove a source of irritation to the already weakened liver and kidneys.