The fallacy that longevity and freedom from other maladies was ensured by gout was prevalent among our forefathers. In satire of this, one Philander Misaurus issued a brochure entitled “The Honour of the Gout,” and purporting to be writ, “Right in the Heat of a violent Paroxysm; and now publish’d for the common Good” (1735). “Bless us,” says he, “that any man should wish to be rid of the Gout; for want of which he may become obnoxious to fevers and headache, be blinded in his understanding, loose the best of his Health and the Security of his Life”; and forthwith in his zeal for the common good gives us the following invocation:—
“Blessed Gout, most desirable Gout, Sovereign Antidote
Of murdering Maladies; powerful corrector of Intemperance;
Deign to visit me with thy purging Fires, and throw off the
Tophous Injury which I may have suffer’d by Wine and Wit,
Too hard for the Virtue of a Devotee upon a Holy Festival.
But fail not thy humble Supplicant, who needs thy
Friendly Help, to keep his tottering Tenement in
Order: Fail him not, every Vernal and Autumnal
Æquinox.”