Uterine gout has been described by Sir James Simpson, but there is no satisfactory evidence of organic uterine disease that can be properly ascribed to gout. But there is abundant evidence of the fact that women who belong to gouty families are frequent sufferers with painful nervous sensations and disturbances of function involv lug the organs within the pelvis. Such patients suffer with leucor rhcea, dysmenorrlick.a, uterine catarrh, herpetic eruptions about the vulva, and various erosions of the cervix, that either accompany or alternate with the eczema, bronchitis, asthma, and other arthritic affections that are so characteristic of the diathesis. They also have frequent experience of lumbar neuralgia, sciatica, hemorrhoids, pruritus of the vulva,. and sudden violent determinations of the blood to the pelvic viscera. It is at the time of the menopause that these incidents are most frequent and most annoying. Attacks of metror rhagia are not infrequent under such circumstances, and they often alternate with congestive paroxysms affecting the lungs, liver, and other viscera. In chronic cases such a degree of over-sensitiveness
is developed that pain accompanies every movement of the abdominal and pelvic organs ; and the neck of the uterus becomes intolerant of the slightest touch. The happy effect of warm baths and alkaline medication throws a clear light upon the nature of many of these cases, and points the way to relief that cannot be procured by topical treatment. Whenever vulvar pruritus cannot be explained by the existence of diabetes, leucorrhcea, uncleanliness, or the presence of parasites, it will generally be found that the patient belongs to a gouty family ; and a careful inquiry will frequently result in the dis covery of other slight and often disregarded evidences of the arthritic predisposition. If, therefore, uterine gout does not exist, it is cer tain that uterine disorders may be most profoundly influenced by the disease, even in its most obscure and latent form.