In an earlier report (1) an experiment was described in which a test dose of glycine-N15 was fed to a gouty subject and the abundance of N'5 in uric acid as well as in other urinary constituents was measured for several days. It was found that three times as much of the administered N15 could be recovered in urinary uric acid in the gouty subject as in the two normal subjects studied.The gouty subject used in this initial study had been deliberately selected on the basis of his excessive basal urinary uric acid excretion in order to determine whether increased basal urinary excretion of uric acid, which has been found to occur in about 25 per cent of all gouty subjects studied (2), can properly be ascribed to overproduction of uric acid. In the present report are included similar experiments on three further gouty subjects, one also excreting excessive quantities of uric acid in the urine, the other two excreting amounts within the normal range under the prescribed dietary conditions. METHODS AND MATERIALSAll subj ects were maintained on a constant low purine, restricted protein diet (Table I) for 5 to 10 days before administration of glycine and thereafter throughout the period of urine collections. Estimations of urinary excretion of uric acid and total nitrogen were made during the preliminary and experimental.periods.Isotopic glycine (N1 = 60.5 atom per cent excess) was fed with breakfast to each subject at a dosage level of 100 mg. per Kg. of body weight. All synthetic, isolation and analytical procedures were conducted precisely as in the earlier experiment. In one subject (A. R.) the magnitude and turnover rate of the miscible pool of uric acid were determined (3) following intravenous injection of 100 mg. of uric acid-i, 3-N". SubjectsThe gouty subjects selected for study all had unequivocal evidence of the disease, were in about the same (relatively young) age group, had about the same duration of clinical symptoms with similar course, and could not be differentiated on clinical grounds. The one significantly different finding was that H. G. and D. R. consistently excreted unequivocally greater than normal amounts of uric acid in the urine on the indicated diet whereas the urinary urate excretion of A. R. and J. R. consistently remained within normal limits (Table I).The normal subjects, E. B. and M. R. were described in an earlier report (1). The clinical history of gouty subject D. R. also has been described (1).H. G., a 38 year old white male, had his first attack of gout at the age of 25. In the past 13 years, acute attacks were never frequent but increased in severity. His mother was stated to have arthritis, but there is no family history of gout. A small tophus in one ear and a punchedout area seen on X-ray at the first left metatarsal joint have been noted. Routine urinalysis was normal; serum NPN, 34 mg. per 100 ml.; inulin clearance, 117 ml. per min. (91.5 ml. per min. after correction for surface area); serum uric acid, 10.0 to 12.0 mg. per 100 ml.A. R., a 42 year old white male, had his fir...

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649of thymus chromosomes, while thiocyanate, reported by Herve and Bacq(3) actually to increase X-ray lebhality, was found here to increase nucleoprotein viscosity. On the other hand, most of the agents tested did have parallel activity in their effects on nucleoprotein viscosity and in vivo X-ray toxicity.Among these are cysteine(4,5), cyanide(6), and glutathione( S), which respond psitively in both tests, and cystine( S), thiouracil (7:8). and ascorbic acid(5), which give negative results in both tests, although ascorbic acid does show a positive effect in the nucleoprotein viscosity test after a prolonged period of time.In addition, the parallelism holds true for the experiments on the effeat of cysteine on X-ray reduction of nucleoprotein viscosity. Patt et u1.(4) have shown that cysteine protects rats from the lethal action of X-rays only if administered shortly before irradiation. Similarly, it was found here that H e~e .In the course of an investiga,tion( 1) of the incidence of lymphocytic lesions in skeletal *This investigation was aided by grants from the U'ebster Underhill Fund and the Masonic Foundation for Medical Research and Human Welfare. muscle of patients with art,hritis, biopsy specimens of fresh human muscle became available for simultaneous chemical analysis. Though 1. Sokoloff, L., Wilens, S. L., Bunim, J. J., and McEwen, C., Am. J . Y e d . Sc., 1950, v219, 174.