William Cadogan [His essay on gout] / by John Ruhräh.

  • William Cadogan
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: William Cadogan [His essay on gout] / by John Ruhräh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/138 (page 9)
    Cadogan’s Dissertation on the Gout” is a readable, satiric article, thrice as long as the original. One comment in this tract may throw some light on why Cadogan’s ideas pro¬ voked so much discussion, as well as on the life of the time and the wit of the author: If I am not mistaken the laudable qualities, which are at present the most in fashion, are keeping mistresses, debauching friends’ wives, cheating at gaming tables and at Newmarket, indulging in every excess and refinement in eat¬ ing and drinking, and speaking in Parliament. William Falconer of Bath, William Carter, Mr. Daniel Smith and others pub¬ lished tracts about Cadogan’s dissertation, but one gathers that they did him more good than harm. The last part of his preface contains a sort of conjessio medici: I think a real Physician the most liberal of characters upon the earth; by which I do not mean every Doctor that goes about taking guineas, but him who will neither flatter the great nor deceive the ignorant, and who would