DIET FOR GOUT. 335 



do more harm than good. Generally speaking, they had better be 

 avoided till the gastric functions are restored during convales- 

 cence. 



As a rule, the temperature of food in sickness should be as 

 nearly as possible that of the natural heat of the body about 98. 

 But in cases of fever or diarrhea, or where there is considerable 

 nausea, the cooler it is the better. When there is inflammation of 

 the stomach or bowels or where vomiting is present, the food should 

 invariably be in a liquid form, given quite cold and only a few 

 spoonfuls at a time. A very little pepsin may be helpful in such 

 cases. 



"When there is considerable prostration, when the patient can 

 not be raised without danger of fainting, or when he ought not to 

 be moved from the recumbent posture at all, as in typhoid fever or 

 cholera, the liquid food is best given by a china feeding cup and 

 not by a spoon, for taking food by little spoonfuls is often a 

 source of irritation to the sufferer, who prefers being left alone 

 and without food rather than troubled to take it in driblets. But 

 the same vessel or even another of the same appearance should not 

 be used for both food and medicine. 



Sometimes it is necessary to give food otherwise than by the 

 mouth, as at the height or latter end of acute fevers. Injections then 

 become necessary and life may often be sustained for some time by 

 nutritive injections, given by this means. Food must in such cases 

 be blood- warm, diluted and slowly injected as far as possible. If the 

 injection be farinaceous, as barley-water or gruel, the addition of a 

 little diastase (in the shape of malt extract), will to some extent 

 supply the deficiency of saliva. If it consist of broth or beef -tea 

 the addition of a little pepsin will supply the lack of gastric juice. 

 Not more than a quarter of a pint should be given at a time. 



Diet for Fever-Patients Barley-water, water gruel, rice- 

 gruel, toast-water, white-wine whey, rennet-whey, alum-whey, lem- 

 onade, linseed-tea, arrow-root, egg-soup, panada, chicken-broth, 

 mutton -broth, beef- tea, malt-tea, tea, biscuit and milk, bread- 

 pudding, rice-pudding, batter-pudding, mashed potato and enema. 



DIET FOR GOUT. 



Gout seldom attacks persons employed in constant physical 

 labor, or those who live chiefly on vegetable diet. It appears to be 

 probable that gout is occasioned by an accumulation of imperfectly 

 changed nitrogenous matter, due either to an excessive 

 nitrogenous supply, to a defective transforming capacity, to 

 an arrest of transformation by alcoholic drinks, or to an imperfect 

 transformation of some material in the alcoholic drink. For there 

 is found to be an accumulation of oxydizable materials which are 

 not naturally assimilated. Hence they remain in the system in the 



