Gout and goutiness : and their treatment / by William Ewart.

  • William Ewart
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gout and goutiness : and their treatment / by William Ewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/612 (page 19)
    Indeed, they may be expected in a disease essentially conditioned by the mode of life. In its clinical types, in its duration, and in its relative mildness or severity, there is room for much variation. Whilst, then, the essential pathological features are probably the same now as ever they were, all the rest in gout is variable, and more especi- ally the mutual relation and degrees of the two phases. The history of abarticular gotct in the distant past cannot be traced with any certainty ; but in connection with less remote periods the inquiry can be conducted with some definiteness, and it possesses practical interest, since the remedies and the doses used by our fore- fathers might not be necessarily suitable for the present generation. CONTEMPORARY GOUT AND GOUTINESS. Gout being to a large extent a manufactured product of civilization, and being influenced more than most other affections by inheritance, conditions of life capable of im- pressing peculiarities upon the organism may be expected to affect in a direct manner the liability of subsequent generations. The modifying influences special to modern times can only be briefly indicated. Our luxuriousness of hving vies with that to which the gout of the ancients has been attributed; but in addition profound changes have taken place in the social and economical conditions of the last few generations, none of which is probably so im- portant in connection with gout as the agglomeration of the population in large towns. Moreover, the present century has called into operation previously latent forces of Nature. The scheme of life is complicated by new agencies ; the storage and the hbera- tion of nerve energy are both altered in their rate and in their amount; wear and tear which is saved by anesthetics