OF THE GOUT.

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markably keen a day or two before the fit, and there is a slight pain inpassing urine, and frequently an involuntary shedding of tears. Some,times These symptoms are much more violent, especially upon the neatapproach of the fit; and it has been observed, that as is the fever whichushers in the gout, so will the fit be: if the fever be short and sharptie fit will be so likewise; if it be feeble, long, and lingering, the fit wiUoe such also. But this observation can only hold with respect to veryregular fits of the gout.

The regular gout generally makes its attack in the spring or beginningof winter in the following manner: About two or three in the morning,the patient is seized with a pain in his great toe, sometimes m the heel,and at other times in the ancle or calf of the leg. This pain is accompained with a sensation as if cold water were poured upon the part,which is succeeded by a shivering, with some degree of lever. Afterwards the pain increases, and, fixing among the small bones of the foot,the patient feels all the different kinds of torture, as if the part werestretched, burnt, squeezed, gnawed, or torn in pieces. The part atlength becomes so exquisitely sensible, that the patient cannot bear tohave it touched, or even suffer any person to walk across the room.

The patient is generally in exquisite torture for twenty-four hours fromthe time of the coming o"n of the fit: he then becomes easier, the partbegins to swell, appears red, and is covered with a little moisture. To-wards morning he drops asleep, and generally falls into a gentle breath-ing sweat. This terminates the first paroxysm, a number of which con-stitutes a fit of the gout; which is longer or shorter according to the pa-tient's age, strength, the season of the year, and the disposition of thebody to this disease. ....

The patient is always worse towards night, and easier m the morning.The paroxysms however generally grow milder every day, till at lengththe disease is carried off by perspiration, urine, and the other evacua-tions. In some patients this happens in a few days; in others, it re-quires weeks, and in some months, to finish the fit. Those whom ageand frequent fits of the gout have greatly debilitated seldom get freefrom it before the approach of summer, and sometimes not till it bepretty far advanced.

REGIMEN.------As there are no medicines yet known that will cure

the gout, we shall confine our observations chiefly to regimen, both inand out of the fit.

In the fit, if the patient be young and strong, his diet ought to bethin and cooling and his drink of a diluting nature; but where theconstitution is weak, and the patient has been accustomed to live high,this is not a proper time to retrench. In this case he must keep nearlyto his usual diet, and should take frequently a cup of strong negus, or aglass of generous wine. Wine-whey is a very proper drink in this case,as it promotes the perspiration without greatly heating the patient. ItWill answer this purpose better if a tea-spoontul of volatile liouorof hartshorn be put into a cup of it twice a-day. It will likewisebe proper to give at bed time a tea-spoonful of the volatile tincture ofguaiacum in a large draught of warm wine-whey. This will greatlypromote perspiration through the night.