Contributions to practical medicine / by James Begbie.

  • James Begbie
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to practical medicine / by James Begbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    crippling, lameness, and deformity. Everywhere its ravages are discernible by those who have carefully studied its course—a course, however, which is too often run unper- ceived and unsuspected. It is of the first consequence to attend to what are called the premonitory signs of gout, for it is chiefly at that season that we can employ with advantage remedial means, while if neglected, they never fail to be followed by symptoms which are characteristic of progressive constitutional dis- order. The improvement in the general health which has long been remarked to follow the earlier attacks of gout, and the notion too generally entertained that a fit of the disease relieves the system of other disorders, have led to supiueness at one time, and to dangerous and fatal experi- ment at another. Some, trusting too much to what is believed to be the salutary nature of gout, have been content to look on expectingly during the course of symptoms which are acknowledged to be precursory of the coming fit; while others, more daring, have too often attempted, perhaps suc- cessfully, to force it on by prescribing continued indulgence in the vicious habit which has engendered the disorder, forgetting that in gout there is a morbid poison which may at any time seize on a vital part, and which cannot continue to accumulate in the blood without imminent hazard to life, or sure and certain deterioration of health. In correspondence with usually received opinion, though contrary to the observation of a late writer, my own expe- rience leads me to the conclusion that dyspeptic symptoms in- variably precede even the first invasion of gout, and that these occur with even greater regularity at this than at any subse- quent attack of the confirmed disease. Indigestion and mal- assimilation are the first steps in the great constitutional dis- order which, aided by hereditary predisposition, is developed in the gouty diathesis. It is true, no doubt, that the first
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