Copy 1, Volume 2

The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good].

  • John Mason Good
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    677/724 (page 667)
    ( CL. 11. ] SANGUINEOUS FUNCTION. [oRD. 11. 667 Radulphus, a Dominican of the thirteenth century, who Gey. XI. writes, “cum gutta, quam podagram, vel arthriticam vo- Peete cant, frequenter vexareter.’’ | podagra. The resemblance between gout and rheumatism is so Distinctive close, that the one is often mistaken for the other; and ™*s of gout and both by Bergius were regarded as convertible ; yet, while rheuma- the former chiefly fixes on the small joints, the latter at- #™ tacks the large; and the first is often hereditary, while the second is rarely or never so. Gout is far more connected with a dyspeptic state of the stomach than rheumatism: its incursions are, for the most part, more sudden, its nocturnal exacerbations less striking, but its remissions much clearer. While rheumatism mostly begins in the shoulders or elbow, gout always begins in the foot or ankle. Gout, moreover, is a far more “complicated complaint Diversity of than rheumatism; and hence there is no disease to which oPimions in theory and the human frame is subject, that has led to such a variety practice. of opinions, both in theory and practice, many of them directly contradictory to each other, as the gout; and I may add, there is no disease, concerning the nature and treatment of which physicians are so little agreed : so that, Hence to this moment, it constitutes perhaps the widest field for °P°™s * wide field empyricism, and the hottest for warfare, of any that lie for empy- within the domain of medical science. ricism. Shutting the door to disputation and unfounded theory General as far as we are able, let us, in as few words as possible, vege ah attend to the clear and established history of this disease, our best as we would to that of any other, and draw our pathology See: and our mode of practice from the principles which it will thology, be fairly found to inculcate. In the first place, it is admitted on all hands, or at least Gout a dis- with exceptions so few as scarcely to disturb the general I Stem a consent, that gout, in whatever way it shows itself, is disease of the system; or, in other words, is “Eesha upon a peculiar diathesis or state of the constitution. And next, it is as commonly admitted that this diathesis sometimes is, in some instances, original, and in others hereditary or cere: derived. There are many persons in whom this complaint derived. makes its appearance, who can trace no such affection 1n Nature of their ancestors; and as such persons are specially distin- the consti- ‘ ; : : tution where guished by a habit of indolence, luxury, and indulgence, the discase and particularly in the. pleasures of the table, it is from 1s original.