1854

Sir Alfred Baring Garrod described first clinical chemical test, his famous “thread test,” a semiquantitative method for measuring uric acid in blood or urine. That is, the thread test demonstrated that most of his gouty patients were hyperuricemic. The test revealed small quantities of uric acid around the thread in normal persons and patients with gout. Garrod went on to demonstrate the presence of urate deposits in the articular cartilage of patients with gout. It was these deposited urate crystals that cause gout inflammation (Nuki & Simkin; Iglesias; Hickman).