Gout in a Bottle

by Glen L. Bledsoe 

 I sat in the doctor’s office with my foot painfully swollen well beyond its normal size.

“I’m not even going to touch it,” he said. “That is the classic photo from a 1920’s medical textbook on gout.”

I said, “Nobody has gout in the 21st century. Isn’t that something Kings who ate mutton and drank mead had back in the days of yore?”

“What happened is that you ate a combination of foods that contained a lot of uric acid. Then just like in those high school experiments that demonstrated chemical precipitation your body precipitated monosodium urate crystals in the lowest region of your body. Your foot.”

The next time you wish to demonstrate chemical precipitation, I highly recommend you use lab glassware rather than your foot.

 


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