242

08 THE GOUT.

■

sary. When the gout affects the head, the pain of the joint ceases, andthe swelling disappears, while either severe head-ach, drowsiness, trem-bling, giddiness, convulsions or delirium come on. When it seizes thelungs, great oppression, with cough and difficulty of breathing, ensue.If it attacks the stomach, extreme sickness, vomiting, anxiety, pain ithe epigastric region, and total loss of strength, will succeed.

When the gout attacks the head or lungs, every method must be takento fix it in the feet. They must be frequently bathed in warm water,and acrid cataplasms applied to the soles. Blistering-plasters ought like-wise to be applied to the ankles, or calves of the legs. Bleeding in thefeet or ankles is also necessary, and warm stomachic purges. The patientought to keep in bed for the most part, if there be any signs of inflam-mation, and should be very careful not to catch cold,

If it attack the stomach with a sense of cold, the most warm cordialsare necessary ; as strong wine boiled up with cinnamon or other spices;cinnamon-water; peppermint-water; and even brandy or rum: some-times a:ther is found to be an efficacious remedy in this case. The pa-tient should keep his bed, and endeavour to promote a sweat by drinkingwarm liquors; and if he should be troubled with a nausea, or inclina-tion to vomit, he may drink camomile-tea, or any thing that will makehim vomit freely.

When the gout attacks the kidneys, and imitates gravel pains, thepatient ought to drink freely of a decoction of marsh-mallows, and tohave the parts fomented with warm water. An emollient clyster oughtlikewise to be given, and afterwards an opiate. If the pain be very vio-lent, twenty or thirty drops of tincture of opium may be taken ina cup of the decoction.

Persons who have had the gout should be very attentive to any com-plaints that may happen to them about the time when they have reasonto expect a return of the fit. The gout imitates many other disorders,and by being mistaken for them, and treated improperly, is often divertedfrom i'ts regular course, to the great danger of the patient's life.

Those who never had the gout, but who, from their constitution ormanner of living, have reason to expect it, ought likewise to be very cir-cumspect with regard to its first approach. If the disease, by wrongconduct or improper medicines, be diverted from its proper course, themiserable patient has a chance to be ever after tormented with head-achs,coughs, pains of the stomach and intestines, and to fall at last a victimto its attack upon some of the more noble parts.

The observations of the late Dr. Hamilton, of Lynn, on the cause andtreatment of gout, the means he recommends of mitigating the severe in-flammatory pain, lessening the duration of the paroxysms, and prevent-ing the rigidity and distressing lameness which remain in many arthriticpatients in the intervals of the fits, are valuable and important: beingthe result of many years' personal experience, we presume they cannotfail to be acceptable to our readers. From the most accurate investiga-tion of the gout in his own person, it appeared evidently to him that theattack was accompanied with symptoms of a highly inflammatory dis-temper, and, (luring the commencement of the paroxysm, was as muchso as pleurisy, peripneumony, acute rheumatism, or any other phlogistic-disease ; resembling the acute rheumatism more than any other. He had