S40 An Appendix to a Paper on the Effects 



tlie eau medlcinaJe; the pain of the gout was insufferable, I got 

 into bed, arid was so chiliy as not to be able to keep my hands 

 wann, even under the bed clothes. In two hours, I became 

 rather hot and thirsty. l«i three hours, the pain was so much 

 diminished as to be tolerable, while the limb was at rest. In 

 seven hours, I had a confined motion from the bowels, and the 

 pain in the ankle became severe, while the foot was placed on 

 the ground, but this went off as soon as the foot was again 

 placed in a horizontal posture. A nausea, or half sickness, 

 came on; my pulse, which is naturally 80 in a minute, was 

 lowered to 60, and intermitted. In ten hours, the nausea was 

 gone off, but I remained languid, the pulse beating 70 in a mi- 

 nute. I had some appetite for food. 



The following morning, my pulse was 80, and having passed 

 a good night, I was enabled to walk as usual, and follow the 

 duties of mv profession. 



If these observations shall be confirmed, they must lead us to 

 conclude, that the different kinds of substances, which produce 

 specific diseases, are first carried into the circulation, in the 

 same manner as mineral and animal poisons, and that the 

 medicines by which they are acted upon, go through the same 

 course, before they produce their beneficial effects ; a material 

 step will thus be gained in the consideration of diseases, and the 

 modes of treating them. 



LXVII. An Appendix tn a Paper on the Effects of the Col- 

 chicum autumnale on Gout. By Sir Everard Home, Barf. 



r.p.R.s* 



W HEN I laid before the Society my paper upon this subject, 

 1 was anxious to establish what appeared to me to be two im- 

 portant facts ; one, that the infusion of the colchicum can be 

 received into the circulation without producing any permanent 

 mischief; the other, that it is through the medium of the circu- 

 lation its beneficial effects upon gout are produced, and there- 

 fore the sudden relief which is experienced can be readily ex- 

 plained. Having attended to the effects of the eau medicinale 

 and of this medicine for several years in cases of gout, both in 

 iTiv own case, and in those of my friends, I found, invariably, 

 that they diminished the frequency of the pulse, ten or twenty 

 beats in a minute, and this effect generally took place about 

 twelve hours after the medicine was exhibited: I therefore con- 

 sidered this to be the criterion of the constitution being under 

 the influence of the medicine; and when I found that the pulse 



* From the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1816, part ii. 



was 



