Outside the body piperazin has a remarkable power of dissolving uric acid and producing a soluble urate, but in clinical experience it has not proved equally successful.
In health most of the nitrogenous waste in the body is eliminated as urea, but in gout uric acid is either formed in too great quantity or too little is eliminated, so that it tends to be deposited as urate of soda in the joints and other tissues.
During an attack of acute gout nothing relieves so much as colchicum, but during the intervals potash or lithia salts taken in water are advisable, as tending to prevent the deposits of urate of soda.
If urate crystals can be seen in the fluid under a microscope, you have gout.
The doctor also may find it helpful to examine chalky, sodium urate deposits (tophi) around joints to diagnose gout.