rongest wine in common use, to be taken
in the fits of the gout, to the detriment of thousands; and is said himself
to have perished a martyr to the disease, which he knew how to subdue!

As example has more forcible effect: than simple assertion, I shall now
concisely relate my own case, and that of one of my most respected friends.
E. D. was about forty years of age, when he was first seized with a fit of
the gout. The ball of his right great toe was very painful, and much
swelled and inflamed, which continued five or six days in spite of
venesection, a brisk cathartic with ten grains of calomel, and the
application of cold air and cold water to his foot. He then ceased to drink
ale or wine alone; confining himself to small beer, or wine diluted with
about thrice its quantity of water. In about a year he suffered two other
fits of the gout, in less violent degree. He then totally abstained from
all fermented liquors, not even tasting small-beer, or a drop of any kind
of wine; but eat plentifully of flesh-meat, and all kinds of vegetables,
and fruit, using for his drink at meals chiefly water alone, or lemonade,
or cream and water; with tea and coffee between them as usual.

By this abstinence from fermented liquors he kept quite free from the gout
for fifteen or sixteen years; and then began to take small-beer mixed with
water occasionally, or wine and water, or perry and water, or cyder and
water; by which indulgence after a few months he had again a paroxysm of
gout, which continued about three days in the ball of his toe; which
occasioned him to return to his habit of drinking water, and has now for
above twenty years kept in perpetual health, except accidental colds from
the changes of the seasons. Before he abstained from fermented or
spirituous liquors, he was frequently subject to the piles, and to the
gravel, neither of which he has since experienced.

In the following case the gout was established by longer habit and greater
violence, and therefore required more cautious treatment. The Rev. R. W.
was seized with the gout about the age of thirty-two, which increased so
rapidly that at the age of forty-one he was confined to his room seven
months in that year; he had some degree of lameness during the intervals,
with chalky swellings of his heels and elbows. As the disease had continued
so long and so violently, and the powers of his digestion were somewhat
weakened, he was advised not entirely to leave off all