The primary cause of gout is through the excessive production of urin-acid within the body due to the lack of purine proteolysis in the spleen. Also, gout can be caused by the failure of the kidneys to adequately filter the urin-acid present within the blood stream. This situation is comparable to when a sewer becomes clogged due to the dirty water passing through it. Thus, if the spleen fails to function properly, this will ultimately cause the kidneys to malfunction. As a result, the excess urin-acid spreads throughout the body via various blood vessels and usually settles around joint areas such as the toe or behind the ear subsequently causing extremely painful infections. Even gout was named in Chinese with the character meaning of pain since this disease causes great pain.

Because the cause of gout lies in both the spleen and kidney, it is difficult to treat.
Western Medicine tries to cope with this ailment by injecting drugs that remove urin-acid. However, this cannot be considered as a fundamental treatment method because the currently available drugs fail to effectively diminish the presence of urin-acids within the body.
Therefore it can be said that in the case of Western Medicine, gout can be considered as
An incurable disease.

As aforementioned, gout, while appearing to be caused by malfunction of the kidneys, is in reality caused by the malfunction of the spleen. Therefore, it can be said that the main
Objective of Oriental Medicine is to not only eliminate the visible and external aspects of a disease, but also determine and eliminate its fundamental causes.
Likewise, Western Medicine should focus on not only dealing with the failure of the kidneys to eliminate urin-acid, but should concentrate more on determining whether the spleen is effectively conducting its function of digesting protein, which is the source of urin-acid. In other words, gout is more a disease of the spleen than of the kidneys.

Here, it is important to note that male/female ratio of gout patients is roughly 20:1, which indicates that gout is mainly a disease that affects men. In other words, because of the unique physical constitution of each sex, for the majority of males, all the bodily functions happen to occur according to the level of interaction between the spleen and kidneys, while for the female majority, the occurrence of physio and pathological functions depend on the level of interaction between the liver and the lungs. Consequently, since gout occurs due to an unbalance in the relationship (known as suh seung hwa gang or the relationship between fire and water in Chinese) between the spleen and kidneys, it is only natural that gout occurs more frequently in males than in females.

Alcohol consumption and stress are commonly known to be the main causes of gout because these factors serve to weaken the digestion capability of patients who have a malfunctioning spleens. Also, for patients who have a natural tendency to have weak kidneys, stress and alcohol are known to severely limit the function of kidneys by arousing the fire qi of an individual. Therefore, for a physical constitution that has problems elevating the yang-qi caused by a weak fire-qi in the spleen, medicine that boosts the yang-qi (seung yang ik qi) should be used as a cure. And for a physical constitution that has problems lowering the yin-qi caused by a weak water-qi in the kidneys, medicine that neutralizes the yin-qi while strengthening the fire-qi (ja eum kang hwa) should be used as a cure.

Also, it is extremely important that the patient maintains an everyday habit of avoiding liquor and greasy foods while exercising regularly. There is an old saying that says 'While we can't fully receive the benefits bestowed on us by our forefathers, we can fully reap the benefits that are a result of our showing respect to others'. Likewise, this saying holds true when curing diseases.