ns.

Among these he mentions, as primary and of general application, the
rule that, before all things, the body must be purified, either
by venesection in cases where the material is sanguineous, or by
purgation in other varieties of the disease. If the cause is rheumatic
in its nature, fomentations should never be employed, for fear of
increasing the flux. That the peccant material is to be eliminated
gradually by mild remedies, just as it accumulated by degrees. In all
cases of gout, and in all chronic diseases generally, much attention
must be devoted to the stomach, since if this organ rejects the
medicine, the latter must be at once abandoned, lest the stomach
becomes weakened and even other organs, and thus the humors flow more
readily (_magis reumatizarent_) to the joints, etc.

These general medical rules are succeeded by some twenty pages devoted
largely to special formulae for the different forms of gout, with
remarks as to their applicability to the different varieties of the
disease. Most of the formulae bear special titles, apparently to lend
the weight of a famous name to the virtues of the prescription itself,
something as in these modern days we speak of "Coxe's Hive Syrup,"
"Dover's Powder," "Tully's Powder," etc. Thus we read of the "_Pilulae
artheticae Salernitorum_," the "_Cathapcie Alexandrine_," the "_Oxymel
Juliani_" the "_Pilulae Arabice_," the "_Pulvis Petrocelli_,"
the "_Oleum benedictum_," the "_Pilulae Johannicii_," etc. It is
important, too, to remark that the active ingredient of very many
of these formulae is the root called hermodactyl, believed by the
majority of our botanists to be the _colchicum autumnale_.

Gilbert's discussion of gout closes with a short and characteristic
chapter entitled "_Emperica_," in which he remarks: "Although I
perhaps demean myself somewhat in making any reference to empirical
remedies, yet it is well to write them in a new book, that the work
may not be lacking in what the ancients (_antiqui_) have said on the
subject. Accordingly I quote the words of Torror. If you cut off the
foot of a green frog and bind it upon the foot of a gouty patient for
three days, he will be cured, provided you place the right foot of
the frog upon the right foot of the patient, and vice versa. Funcius,
also, who wrote a book on stones, said that if a magnet was bound upon
the foot of a gouty patient, he is cured. Another philosopher also
declared that if you take the heel-bon