On gout : its history, its causes, and its cure / by William Gairdner.
- William Gairdner
- Date:
- 1851
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On gout : its history, its causes, and its cure / by William Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
239/318 (page 227)
![Milk diet has been very often recommended in gont, and always ended in disappointment. It seems to have had some very earnest advocates at the time of Sydenham, who expresses a more favorable opinion of it than might have been expected from so judicious an observer. But he admits that he never heard of any permanent benefit derived from it. His expe- rience of the remedy, in fact, amounts to this, that it does no good unless it be rigidly enforced; that it cannot be very long continued, on account of its debihtating efiects; and that, on a return to better diet, any relief it may have given quicldy disappears. A purely farinaceous or vegetable diet is still more to be condemned. For the same reason that it is inadmissible in infancy, it is equally misplaced at the other extremity of life. In the one case, feeble organs and undeveloped functions, in the other, decaying organs and impaired functions, are unequal to the conversion of such food. But it has been recommended in many chronic diseases. I have seen it more than once attempted in gout, and, in my mind, alvi'ays with great aggravation of the patient's sufferings. Moreover, a perfectly vegetable diet never can, I think, be reconciled with a life of leisure and ease. The great experience of the world is against it. All animals adapted to con- tinual labour are graminivorous. The foul beasts of ])rey have long periods of sloth, and short inter-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20401152_0241.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
