INFLAMMATIONS. 125 



ceeding, therefore, upon the several parts of the pathology given, 

 as so many matters of fact, I shall now consider what may be 

 attempted towards the cure of the disease. 



DXXXVIII. In entering upon this, I must observe, in the 

 first place, that a cure has been commonly thought impossible ; 

 and we acknowledge it to be very probable, that the gout, as a 

 disease of the whole habit, and very often depending upon ori- 

 ginal conformation, cannot be curecl by medicines, the effects of 

 which are always very transitory, and seldom extend to the pro- 

 ducing any considerable change of the whole habit. 



D XXXIX. It would perhaps have been happy for gouty 

 persons, if this opinion had been implicitly received by them ; 

 as it would have prevented their having been so often the dupes 

 of self-interested pretenders, who have either amused them with 

 inert medicines, or have rashly employed those of the most per- 

 nicious tendency. I am much disposed to believe the impossi- 

 bility of a cure of the gout by medicines ; and more certainly 

 still incline to think, that whatever may be the possible power 

 of medicines, yet no medicine for curing the gout has hitherto 

 been found. Although almost every age has presented a new 

 remedy, yet all hitherto offered have very soon been either ne- 

 glected as useless, or condemned as pernicious. 



DXL. Though unwilling to admit the power of medicines, 

 yet I contend, that a great deal can be done towards the cure 

 of the gout by a regimen : and from what has been observed 

 (CCCCXCVIIL), I am firmly persuaded, that any man who, 

 early in life, will enter upon the constant practice of bodily 

 labour, and of abstinence from animal food, will be preserved 

 entirely from the disease. " Of such, not one in a thousand is 

 affected with the gout, and yet many of them have it by heredi- 

 tary right. We know that among people descended from gouty 

 parents, but who happened to be in circumstances very different 

 from them, being doomed to labour and abstinence, there are 

 instances where the gout never has occurred : it is moreover 

 certain, that men of wealth and of gout, sufficiently addicted to 

 the female sex, beget an offspring which are never elevated 

 above the condition of their mother : there can be little doubt 

 that many of these have the hereditary right and disposition to 



