THE-REAL BLESSINGS OF GOUT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2754, 8 March 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE-REAL BLESSINGS OF GOUT.

Tiiis tiresome disease is sometimes looked upon as a penalty) fori the luxurious living of comparatively moder/i.days; but, aq a .matter.of fact, it has afflicted, mail from 1 the earliest times. Not long ago a mummy • was unwound in Egypt; which Was shown by inscriptions to be the mortal remains l of one of the Pharoahs, and the knotted .fingers proved incontestably that this, 'monarch—who reigned 8.000 years ago— was "a victim to gout. The' Romans, we know; from several passages in their liter-' ature. were no strangers to its attaeks ; ;aud in their times, as /in ours, it was largely attributed to high', living. A curious fact iri conneotion with gout, in ■the days of the Casars,iis that' it: is saiid to have then found its victims chiefly, among the weaker sex. who nowadays are comparatively free from it. The writings of Galen, Hippocrates, and other Greek physicians- show that goat was as common in ancient Greece as in her great Latin rival, . Galen . said of it that it was a distemper which none but the e'ods could cure—an opinion that must be shared by many, who have tried in vain to obtain relief from its twinges, Tlie doctor who deserves, the monument as high as St. ' Paul's, as wide as the Thames, and as enduring as time—which Dr. Johnston declared awaited him who found a cure for gout—is still-,. to ; come, for.though its attacks ,may, be- modified by regulating'the diet and taking abundant exercise, no one has "yet : been able to prove himself a master of the art 'of' healing this most difficult of the many difficult diseases to which flesh is heir. The Variety of the remedies recommended for a complaint is a sure index of its susceptibility to treatment; and onetime or another the. doctors have professed themselves to be believers in almost every conceivable method for neutralising the effects of this one. It has been attacked with acids and akalies, with fire, and water ; cauterisation having been once the favourite form of remedy for it, as aqua pura was in tbe early days of this century. Dr. Synenham, the renowned English physician of the seventeenth century, who knew by painful experience what gout was, declares it to be almost the only disease which destroys more rich tnen than poor men, more men of great intellect than men of ordinary capacity and understanding. He says : " Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals, and philosophers have all died of gout. Hereby Naturo shows her irnpartiaality, since those whom she favours in one way ahe iufliota in another. Gout is, in short, according to (rood authority, one of the revenges of good fortune and ulenty ; but however true this may have been in Sydenham's time, the ailment is more democratic now, and shows no such-, nice di-tinotion of class. Labourers who keep away from the beer-shop are hardly ever attacked by it; but over indulgence in malt liquors is one of the surest passports to tfout; and the life of fresh air and exercise, which is, broadly, so antagonistic to this scourge of mankind, is powerless against its ravages unless accompanied by moderate abstinence from this particular beverage. Brain-workers who, though enjoying good health, do not take much exercise, are most subject to gout. It is a curious fact that the poorer Iri-h. who live to a large extent upon potatoes, are said to be übsolntely free from its attacks. Gont is undeniably on the increase in this country ; and this fact lias been put forward as an evidence of our growing wealth and prosperity. A nation must be prosperous to maintain any considerable proportion of its inhabitants in the luxury of gout. There is no country in the world where gout is so common as in ours, owing, no doubt, to the largeness of our leisure class, who do little but eat and drink and endure consequent twinges. It is popularly believed that gout shares with asthma the faculty of strengthening the lives of those whom it favours with its attentions, chiefly because it allows no other disease to dispute its sovereignty. A famous French physician reached the aire of a hundred, and for sixty years of his life was subject to gout; and many others who have attained great age have been martyrs to it. Thero is no ailment for which so little sympathy is accorded as for this. The gouty old gentleman is one of the mainstays of the humorist-; but few who have not been subjected to it realise the dreadful agony that the victim to this disease is called upou to endure. No doubt the provalenoe of gout is, to a great extent, to be accounted for by the tendency that it has to descend from father to son. Dr. Garrod relates that lie was once consulted by a patient who told him that his family records showed that every representative of his house had fallen into its clutches for tho last 400 years. No doubt this was an extreme case, for the tendency of gout to skip a generation is one of its most widly recognised attributes. It is supposed that considerably more than half of all cases of gout are hereditary. Horace Walpole profc-sed himself to be very much hurt at the oonduut of gout in selecting him as one of its viotiins, though his ancestors had been free from it, and he himself had always led an extremely abstomious life. "If either my father or mother had had it," is his remark, "I should not dislike it so much. lam herald enough to approve of it if descended genealogically ; but it is an absolute npstart in rue; and, what is more provoking, I had trusted to my great abstinence for keeping me from it; but thus it is. If I had any gentlemanlike virtue, as patriotism or loyalty, I might have got something by them. I had nothing but that beggarly virtue, temperanco. and she had not interest.enough to keep me from a fit of the gout." A curious little book in honour of the gout was written by one Misanrus, whose objeot was to show it was a blessing for which mankind oould not be sufficiently thankful. His first task was to set forth the antiquity of his subject, which he does by declaring it to be somewhat younger than the fall of our first parents, and sent down from heaven mercifully to lengthen the lives, forfeited by their transgressions. He then proceeds to give six good and sufficient reasons why gout should be hailed as a Mossing. Firstly, he says, it gives man pain without danger. Secondly, that it gives those whom it distinguishes bv its favours in- j t-.rvals in which they may experience to the full the enjoyment of health, that never falls to the lot of those who accomplish their earthly pilgrimage without ita companionship Further he lauds it as a I weatner guide, beside which barometers j are worthless, and predicts that the day will come when no shipowner will con- j sider his vessel safe unless it is under the command of a gouty captain. Fourthly, he avers that gouty people are free from head-ache. Fifthly, that they are not subject to fevers, and sixthly, that gout i 3 incurable. Our gout defender does not go so far as to declare that his pet ailment renders men immortal; but he does say that, if ever anyone has had the art of preserving himself or others from the shafts of the great destroyer, his secret has lain in the power of inoculating with gout. The objection that gouty people die, like other less favoured mortals, is met by the remark that they are idiots, who know not when they are well off, but must need attempt to cure the gout, which, if left alone, would preserve them. The heat of the tropics seem to be in some mysterious way au tagonistic to this disease, which is far oftener met with in temperate latitudes than nearer the equator, and is more prej valent in autumn and winter than in the I aiimmer.—AH th«? Year Round.