ON PHOSPHATE OF AMMONIA. 
11 
was not some agent known to physicians, which would 
neutralize the matter of gout. 
" I wrote him in reply, that gout and rheumatism were the 
opprobria of medicine. That Lord Eldon might just as na- 
turally have gotten rid of his gout had he gone to any other 
place than Bath, and that because Lord Eldon had been 
cured by the use of the Bath water, it by no means follow- 
ed that the same remedy would relieve him. That we 
knew of no solvent which would deprive the fluids of the 
matter of gout ; that this had long been a desideratum with 
physicians, and that there was no doubt that the investiga- 
tions which were now being made by chemists would shed 
such light upon the disease, that we should not be very 
long without a suitable and philosophical mode of cure ; in- 
formation which, in an hereditary point of view, might have 
been very consolatory to his children, but not likely to prove 
so to him. 
" Fearing lest my patient might think that the difficulty lay 
not in the science of medicine, but in his physician, I sent 
him an analysis of the Bath water, and with it all the trea- 
tises on gout which I had in my possession, in order that he 
might see for himself how contradictory the observations 
and statements of experience were in regard to it. And 
now having been forced to this confession of ignorance on 
my own part, and on that of the profession generally, I 
begged, in conclusion, to reassure him of the hope enter- 
tained by some that the day was not far distant when we 
should have a direct solvent of the matter of gout. How 
far my expectations have been already realized, remains to 
be seen." 
" During, and after an attack of either of these diseases, 
thickening often takes place in the fibrous and cartilaginous 
tissues. In gout this thickening most generally occurs in 
the small joints of the fingers and toes : but in rheumatism 
it is oftener seated in the larger articulations, and about the 
valves of the heart, and, when chronic, often converts the 
