Introductory Chapter: Gout

Abstract

Gout is a disease known since before the Common Era. There are reports of urate crystal deposition in the big toe joints of an excavated mummy in ancient Egypt. There are records of many figures throughout Western history who experienced the painful suffering of gout, for example, Alexander the Great of Macedonia, King Carlos V of Spain, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Louis XIV of France, Martin Luther of the Reformation, Oliver Cromwell of the Puritan Revolution, the artist Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, the poets Dante and Milton, the physicist Isaac Newton, and the biologist Charles Darwin, among others. In contrast, there is little historical evidence of gout in Asia. Yet the disease has become common in modern society [1–3]. The prevalence of gout in the past has generally been higher among middle-aged men, but in recent years, the number of young people and women with gout has been increasing.