1962

McCarty and Faires publish in Lancet validation of McCarthy’s findings regarding uric acid crystal. Using themselves as subjects, they injected purified uric acid crystals into one knee, and saline solution into the other knee as a control. “A few hours later, both experienced excruciating inflammatory gout-like sensations in the knees injected with uric acid crystals. Although they had not initially planned on it, the two ultimately opted to take pain medications and hydrocortisone due to the severity of their symptoms. A complementary study in JAMA the same year by J. Edwin Seegmiller injected microcrystalline particulates of solid sodium urate into one knee of 12 gout volunteers, and a non-crystalline solution of sodium urate into the other knee  pain in the knee injected with microcrystalline particulate sodium urate, but not the other knee.  This was consistent with reports from the 1920s that shows absence of inflammatory response to injection with non-crystallized solution of sodium urate (Hickman). Critics of dominant rule of uric acid levels could, in the 60s and now, point to two facts: (1) that marked hyperuricemias occurred in people who never develop gout; and (2) drugs like colchicine, with have no effect on uric acid levels, were effective in treating acute gout attacks (Hickman).