ISl!.] ■ [ 167 3 
REPORT OF DISEASES, 
Under the C&re of the late Senior Fhyucian of the Finsbury Dispensaryf from the 
Q,Oth of July to the '20th oj' August. 
B y more than one gouty patient, the 
Reporter has lately been consulted, 
who had tried, on several former occa¬ 
sions, the celebrated eau mediciuale."^ 
It had never failed to cut sliort tlie 
})aroxysm, without any injurious or in¬ 
convenient consequences appearing to 
ensue from its use;-—Except in the in¬ 
stance of one of the podagric subjects, 
who conceived, that the frequently-re¬ 
peated en)ployment qf the medicine had 
rendered him more liable to fresh assaults 
of the disease; they having in fact oc¬ 
curred at shorter intervals since, than 
for a considerable time before, his having 
had recourse to this method of at least 
temporary relief. That so novel a remedy 
should have met with opposition, is alone 
but slender evidence against its intrinsic 
value and utility. For innovation of any 
kind, however justifiable or important, 
is sure in the first instance to encounter 
resistance and reproach. And that in 
some cases, the indiscreet or unappro¬ 
priate administration of the eau mpdi- 
cinale should have been succeeded by 
injurious or even fatal effects, would be 
unfairly urged as an argument against 
its seasonable and well-regulated appli¬ 
cation. The abuse of that which is sa- 
Jutary, is necessarily pernicious. The 
power of doing good implies also that of 
inflicting injury. But tliose persons, on 
the other hand, who flatter themselves 
that this, or any medicinal preparation, 
should serve as a substitute for habits of 
temperance and activity, will find tliem- 
selves most grievously mistaken. Upon 
the importance qf the latter qf these 
habits more especially, sufficient em¬ 
phasis can scarcely be laid. A man, it 
should be considered, may sit and lie, as 
well as eat and drink, to excess. There 
is a debauchery of inaction, as well as ol 
repletion or stimulation. No other abr 
stinence, however salutary, can com- 
pensate the mischief that attends an ab¬ 
* Mr. Moore has, in a manner highly in¬ 
genious, ascertained almost to demonstration 
the ingredients of this nostrum. He has at 
least discovered a medicinal combination 
which seems capable of producing the same 
effects upon the human frame, and on the 
disease in question. The reader is referred to 
Mr. Moore’s recently-published pamphlet 
upon the subject. 
MoiJTRLTC NQs 
stinence from exercise. The lame feet 
of the gouty are often owing to th.eir not 
having been sufficiently usedi It is but 
a fair retribution, that we should be de¬ 
prived of a faculty which we have not 
enough valued or employed. 
That extraordinary exertion of body may 
even more than counterbalance the evil 
of intemperance, is evinced by unequi¬ 
vocal experience. Dr. Beddoes relates, 
that “ one of the greatest martyrs to tho 
gout that he ever knew, told him, tliat int 
the quarter of a century and upwards, 
during which he had been gouty, his first 
year was that of a warmly-contested elec¬ 
tion, at which he was candidate for a 
county. He both drank and exerted 
himself more than at any other period of 
his iife.’^* 
It is then upon exercise, associated with 
regularity and moderation of living, and 
not upon any of the artifices or felicities 
of pharmaceutical composition,f that the 
arthritic is to depend principally for a de¬ 
fence against the inroads of his painful 
and fearful malady; drugs can assuage the 
torture, but not eradicate its cause. A 
paroxysm may be abridged by this 
mean, but a tendency to its renewal, 
upon the application of any exciting cir¬ 
cumstance, cannot be thus effectually 
and permanently counteracted. 
“ Tollere noJosam nescit medicina poda- 
gram.” 
J. Reid. 
Grenville-street , Bimnsrvkk-sguure, 
August 26, 1811. 
---— -- ----- ^ 
* Dr, Beddoes’s Hygeia. vol, 2, p. 139. 
'}' The Reporter at present estimates much 
more highly than he once did, the important 
utility and the saving power of medicine, 
when suitably and seasonably applied, more 
especially to acute and perilous, disease. Buf 
when a medicinal course has been lengthened 
into habiu it appears to him to loss its salu¬ 
tary, and to acquire a destructive or delete¬ 
rious, influence upon the tranae. Although, 
by a practitioner of venerable authority, this 
opinion would seem not to have been entertain¬ 
ed, it we may credit an anecdote that is com¬ 
municated by Dr. Cheyne. He states, in hisT 
Essay on Gout, that “ a lady of a low hysteric, 
and weak constitution, having asked the fa¬ 
mous Dr. Sydenham how long she nrignt 
safely take steel, his answer was, that she 
might safely take it for thirty years, and 
then begin again if she continued ill.’' 
Y Alpha- 
