328 



GOUROCK 



GOUT 



Europe. The French call it Potiron, and use 

 it largely in soups. The Squash (C. melopepo) 

 differs from all these in generally forming a 

 bush, instead of sending out long trailing shoots ; 

 also in the extremely flattened fruit, the outline 

 of which is generally irregular, and its whole 

 form often so like some kinds of cap that in 

 Germany one variety is commonly known as 

 the Elector's Hat, and the name Turk's Cap is 



Fruit of Cucurbita maxima. 



bestowed on another. The Squash is regarded as 

 one of the best gourds, and is much cultivated in 

 some parts of Europe and in North America. The 

 Warted Gourd (CC verrucosa), which has a very 

 hard-skinned fruit covered with large warts, and 

 the Musk Gourd (C. moschata), distinguished by 

 its musky smell, are less hardy than the kinds 

 already named ; as is also the Orange Gourd ( C. 

 aurantia), sometimes cultivated on account of 

 its beautiful orange-like fruit, which, however, 

 although sometimes edible and wholesome, is not 

 unfrequently very unfit for use, on account of colo- 

 cynth developed in it. This is apt to be the case in 

 some degree with other gourds also, but the bitter 

 taste at once reveals the danger. The same remark 

 is applicable to the young shoots and leaves, which, 

 when perfectly free from bitterness, are an excel- 

 lent substitute for spinach. In Scotland even the 

 most hardy gourds are generally reared on a 

 hotbed and planted out. In England it has been 

 suggested that railway-banks might be made pro- 

 ductive of a great quantity of human food by 

 planting them with gourds. Ripe gourds may be 

 kept fora long time in a cool well-ventilated place, 

 nor are they injured by cutting off portions for use 

 as required. The name gourd is often extended to 

 many other Cucurbitacese. See CUCURBITACE.E, 

 CUCUMBER, &c. ; also BOTTLE-GOURD. 



Gourock, a watering-place of Renfrewshire, 

 on the Firth of Clyde, 3 miles WNW. of Greenock 

 by a railway opened in 1889, since which time it 

 has become the starting-point of Irish and other 

 steamers. At Kempoch Point here, behind which 

 rises Barrhill (478 feet), stands 'Granny Kem- 

 poch,' a prehistoric monolith associated with the 

 witches of Renfrewshire (1662). In 1688 the first 

 red herring ever cured in Great Britain was cured 

 at Gourock. Pop. ( 1841 ) 2169 ; ( 1881 ) 3336 ; ( 1891 ) 

 4431. See Macrae's Notes about Gourock ( 1880). 



Gout (Fr. f/oiittc, from Lat. gutta, 'a drop'), a 

 medieval term of uncertain date, derived from the 

 humoral pathology (see RHEUMATISM), indicating 

 a well-known form of disease, which occurs for the 

 most part in persons of more or less luxurious 

 habits, and paet the middle period of life. In its 

 most common and easily recognised form, it mani- 

 fests itself by an acute inflammation in the neigh- 

 bourhood of one of the joints, usually the ball of 

 the great toe ; and to such attacks only the name 

 vvas once applied. But its use is now extended by 



most writers to include all injurious effects in any 

 part of the body produced by the same condition of 

 the system which leads to the inflammation of the 

 joints. The name podagra (Gr. pod-, 'foot,' and 

 agrct, ' seizure ' ) indicates the leading character of 

 the disease as apprehended by all antiquity ; and 

 the very numerous references to the disorder so 

 called, not only in the medical writings of Hippo- 

 crates, Galen, Aretseus, Cselius, Aurelianus, and 

 the later Greek physicians, but in such purely 

 literary works as those of Lucian, Seneca, Ovid, 

 and Pliny, show not only the frequency, but the 

 notoriety of the disease. The allusions, indeed, 

 are of a kind which give ample proof that the 

 essential characters of gout have not been changed 

 in the lapse of centuries. It is caricatured by 

 Lucian in his burlesque of Tragopodugra in lan- 

 guage quite applicable to the disease as now ob- 

 served ; while the connection of it with the advance 

 of luxury in Rome is recognised by Seneca (Epist. 

 95) in the remark that in his day even the women 

 had become gouty, thus setting at naught the 

 authority of physicians, which had asserted the 

 little liability of women to gout. Pliny likewise 

 (book xxvi. chap. 10) remarks upon the increase of 

 gout, even within his own time, not to go back to 

 that of his father and grandfather ; he is of 

 opinion, further, that the disease must have been 

 imported, for if it had been native in Italy it 

 would surely have had a Latin name. Ovid and 

 Lucian represent gout as mostly incurable by medi- 

 cine ; from this view of it Pliny dissents. The 

 list of quack remedies given by Lucian is one of 

 the most curious relics of antiquity. 



General Causes of Gout. In more than half the 

 cases gout can be traced to inheritance. There is 

 in fact no disease in which hereditary transmission 

 is more clearly established ; in some families its 

 recurrence is notorious. Professor Cantani of 

 Naples even states that in his country ' the heredi- 

 tary tendency has been handed down from the 

 period of the Greek colonisation and the Roman 

 empire.' Yet even in those strongly predisposed to 

 it its actual occurrence may be avoided by strict 

 regulation of the diet and habits. For, if it is 

 certain that it may be inherited, it is no less 

 certain that it may be acquired, though perhaps 

 not, at all events not readily, by every one ; and 

 that the most important of the causes which lead 

 to it are errors in diet. Of these popular opinion 

 has seized upon excessive consumption of alcohol 

 alone ; and there is no doubt that alcohol, especi- 

 ally in the form of strong wine or beer, has ;v 

 powerful effect. But complete abstinence from 

 alcohol will not protect those predisposed to it from 

 the development of gout, unless tney are careful 

 with regard to food as well ; overeating, especially 

 excessive indulgence in animal food and in rich 

 and highly-seasoned dishes, is no less certain to be 

 prejudicial. Too little exercise, especially when 

 associated with too much food or drink, is also 

 hurtful. Chronic lead-poisoning is frequently asso- 

 ciated with the development of gout, though the 

 reason of this is not yet understood. Gout is much 

 more common in the male than in the female sex. 

 It is said to be most common at the present day 

 in England, especially in London, and in southern 

 Italy. 



Essential Nature of Gout. It has long been 

 known that the tophi or chalkstones deposited 

 under the skin in most well-marked and severe 

 cases of gout consist largely of urate of soda ; and 

 that Uric Acid (q.v.) and its salts are often 

 excreted in large amount in the urine of gouty 

 persons. But it was first shown by Dr ( now Sir ) 

 A. Garrod that this substance is always present in 

 considerable quantity in the blood in cases of gout ; 

 in chronic gout at all times, and in acute gout for 



