CHAPTER XV. 



GOUT. 



" Gout is one of the most striking examples of hereditary disease, 

 and once established, it may be transmitted for several generations, 

 even when every endeavour is made to eradicate it ; but as the 

 contrary is generally the case, the malady being, as a rule, more or 

 less intensified by pernicious habits, it becomes in most cases a 

 permanent legacy." SIE FEEDEEICK T. EGBERTS.* 



THIS is a disease of great antiquity. As far as we 

 can go back in medical literature, it is one of the 

 diseases which we find described, and some of the 

 earliest of these descriptions come wonderfully near to 

 what we find the disease to-day. Hippocrates, three 

 hundred years before the time of Christ, described 

 this disease with accuracy, and later, Celsus, Galen, 

 Aretseus, Cselius Aurelianus, and many others wrote 

 concerning gout, hitting off its leading characteristics 

 with great fidelity. 



Gout is a disease of civilisation. It is one of the 

 degenerate conditions induced by interference with the 

 natural life of the human animal. So long as man 

 remained in the natural state, and gained by physical 

 exertion his living, this disease was unknown in fact, 

 * Quain's " Dictionary of Medicine." 



