SECT. 4.
The Reason why the Gout affects particularly the Hands and Feet, and not all the Joints together, where Glands of the same Nature are placed, seems to be this: The Blood vitiated in the Manner before explained, propelling these saline Parts into the Pores of the Glands, from the inequality of its Motion in the Time of a Fit, does not impel those Salts with an equable Force, but chiefly into such Parts (especially the Feet and other pendulous Members) where the Pressure and Impulse lies heaviest; so dilates the Cavities of the smallest Canals, till at length it deposits Part of such Salts, with other viscid Humours, upon those Glands. Thus being partly freed from those Salts, the Gout does not seize other Parts with the same Violence; for frequently a large Quantity of such vitiated Humours are secerned by Urine, Sweat, and other more open Passages; and it even often happens, that Persons whose Juices are much corrupted, have avoided the Distemper by the Laxity and Openness of their Vessels; yet these very Persons, when the Blood becomes oppressed by these saline Particles in so great Degree, as not to be readily discharged by the larger Passages, they affect the Mucilage in the Glands and occasion the Gout.