II. Such as are proper in violent morbid action in the blood-vessels and viscera.
III. Such as are proper in a feeble morbid action in the same parts of the body.
IV. Such as are proper to relieve certain local symptoms which are not accompanied by general morbid action. And
V. Such as are proper to prevent its recurrence, or, in other words, to eradicate it from the system.
I. The symptoms of an approaching fit of the gout are great languor, and dulness of body and mind, doziness, giddiness, wakefulness, or sleep disturbed by vivid dreams, a dryness, and sometimes a coldness, numbness, and prickling in the feet and legs, a disappearance of pimples in the face, occasional chills, acidity and flatulency in the stomach, with an increased, a weak, or a defect of appetite. These symptoms are not universal, but more or less of them usher in nearly every fit of the gout. The reader will see at once their sameness with the premonitory symptoms of fever from cold and miasmata, and assent from this proof, in addition to others formerly mentioned, to the propriety of considering a fit of the gout, as a paroxysm of fever.
The system, during the existence of these symptoms, is in a state of morbid depression. The disease is as yet unformed, and may easily be prevented by the loss of a few ounces of blood, or, if this remedy be objected to, by a gentle doze of physic, and afterwards by bathing the feet in warm water, by a few drops of the spirit of hartshorn in a little sage or camomile tea, by a draught of wine whey, or a common doze of liquid laudanum, and, according to a late Portuguese physician, by taking a few doses of bark.
It is worthy of notice, that if these remedies are omitted, all the premonitory symptoms that have been mentioned disappear as soon as the arthritic fever is formed, just as lassitude and chilliness yield to a paroxysm of fever from other causes.
II. Of the remedies that are proper in cases of great morbid action in the blood-vessels and viscera.
I shall begin this head by repudiating the notion of a specific cure for the gout existing in any single article of the materia medica. Every attempt to cure it by elixirs, diet-drinks, pills, or boluses, which were intended to act singly on the system, has been as unsuccessful as the attempts to cure the whooping cough by spells, or tricks of legerdemain.