Timeline

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Gout's History

400 BCE	Hippocrates, "the father of medicine" relates susceptibility of gout to genital function, differentiating it as a specific disease.
190 AD	Galen of Pergamon explains gout as resulting from an imbalance of the four humors, or fluids that were thought to permeate the body and influence its health.
6th Century	Alexander of Tralles devises laxatives containing "hemodactyl" to treat gout and other diseases. Hermodactyl is related to or the same as colchicum.
1522	Willibald Pirckheimer, a German humanist, writes "In Defense of the Gout," initiating a literary genre of satire praising the "virtues" of the disease.
1679	Antonij van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch microscopist, identifies crystals in gouty tophi that have the appearance of sodium urate.
1683	Thomas Sydenham, a gout-afflicted London physician, writes his classic essay describing the symptoms of a gouty attack and inadequacy of treatment. [Link to Dr. Sydenham's description of a gout attack]
1723	William Musgrave, English physician, considers lead poisoning a cause of "saturnine gout."
1776	Carl W. Scheele, a Swedish apothecary and chemist, discovers uric acid.
1797	William Hyde Wollaston, an English chemist, identifies uric acid in tophi.
1798	Antoine Fourcroy, a French chemist, coins the term "uric acid."
1848	Alfred B. Garrod devises the first test that identifies uric acid in blood, but finds it only in cases of gout and kidney failure.
1859	Garrod determines that gout is caused by either the overproduction or under-excretion of uric acid.
1899	Emil Fischer, a German chemist, proves the molecular structure of uric acid.
1913	Otto Folin and Willey G. Dennis, biochemists at Harvard University, devise the first test sensitive enough to detect uric acid in normal blood.
1937	Knud Brøchner-Mortensen, a Danish biochemist, shows that the serum urate concentration is lower in women than in men.
1951	Probenecid is found to increase excretion of uric acid, resulting in fewer attacks of gout and shrinkage of tophi.
1963	Allopurinol is approved to help reduce uric acid content by partially blocking its production.
1988	Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment including treatment of gout.
2006	New anti-urate drugs are nearing introduction; research on the mechanism of the gouty attack and its resolution continue.