WARNING SIGNS OF URIC ACID OVERLOOKED.
Take a score of brisk, healthy-looking people at random from those you meet in the street; among them a medical man would be able to pick out a high percentage of sufferers from gout. The peculiarity of this, our national disease, is that one may be in its grip without knowing it. Gout masks its approach insidiously and presents symptoms we generally associate with other and minor ailments.
The tendency to develop gout—" Gouty Habit," as it is termed —results in abnormal production or deficient removal of uric acid from the system. The result is accumulation of uric acid in the body. It is at this stage of gout that pain in the chest and back and flatulence are experienced after meals ; and drowsiness, headache, irritability, contribute to a general malaise that no "tonic" or "digestive" can remove. When symptoms of this sort make their appearance between the ages of 85 and 40 (the gouty age), uric acid may well be suspected as the cause. As a rule, the development of gout is next marked by the appearance of small hard lumps beneath the skin—usually on the rim of the ear, upon the eyelids, or upon the ankles or finger joints. These nodules are actual concretions of uric acid; whoever finds himself subject to them may know that he is in the grip of gout.
If these signs of gout are neglected, or pass unrecognized, the disease soon assumes its better known and far more distressing forms, such as acute gout. What happens then is the crystallization of the uric acid, and its collection in one or more of the joints, generally a joint in the foot. The attack begins, as a rule, by a sharp burning pain that steadily grows worse, until it reaches a frightful intensity. The joint swells rapidly, and is of a dull, purplish-red colour, with the skin drawn very tightly over it. In the course of a few days the inflammation and swelling subside and the pain dies down ; but repetitions of the attack may with confidence be expected so long as the uric acid is allowed to remain in the system.
The uric acid often attacks the principal nerves of arm or thigh —and the darting tortures of neuritis or sciatica ensue. A tingling and numbness of the limb usually precede an attack, then comes the pain in all its severity, followed by the lameness of sciatica, and the muscular weakness of neuritis.
Much gouty suffering is due to rheumatism; that agonizingly painful stiffness of the muscles is most often entirely a gouty. stiffness caused by uratio deposit. Lumbago, too, is another form of gout. Gouty eczema is caused by the irritant presence of uric acid in the skin. Kidney stone and gravel are uric acid corn pounds.
• THE BANE OF URIC ACID.
If only uric acid can ho expelled from the system, the gouty subject may enjoy lasting freedom from the extremes of pain that otherwise are sure to follow its spread throughout the body. What is needed to accomplish this is a powerful and active uric acid solvent and elizninant, that will expertise uric acid completely from the system. This rational and scientific method of ridding the system of uric acid, excess is provided by Bishop's Varalettes. Long experience has shown them to possess to the full the qualities necessary in these circumstances.
For many years physicians have prescribed Bishop's Varalettes to their gouty patients for both relief and prevention of all forms of uric acid disorders. A remedy which, like Bishop's Varalettes, • has won the approval of the critical medical faculty of this country, whose knowledge of gout and its treatment is unequalled, may certainly deserve the confidence of all gouty subjects, .
FOOD TO AVOID.
Dieting is recognized as an important feature in the treatment of some cases. Certain foods—particularly those rich in nitrogen —tend to augment the formation of uric acid. Those who have the "Gouty Habit," or who already suffer from gout, will therefore do well to learn what those foods are and how best to avoid them. The choice of a non-gout-provoking diet need not, however, entail any particular hardship, for'of suitable uric-acid-froo, yet palatable, foods there are plenty. In a useful book published by the makers of Bishop's Varalettes, the dietetic values of most articles of food are discussed from the gouty subject's point of view, and authoritative information is given regarding not only dieting, but other factors in the treatment of gout.
Copies of this book may be obtained without charge from the solo inakers of Bishop's Varalettos, Alfred Bishop, Ltd., Mauufacturing Chemists, 48 Spelman Street, London, N.E. Please write ' for booklet Y.
Bishop's Varalettea are obtainable at all chemists, is., 2s., and. 5s.; or they may be had from the makers.
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