exercise, are, no doubt, powerful
auxiliaries, and tend very much to promote health; but still they
will not secure a person from a return of the gout, without this
precaution. There seems something in alcohol, which peculiarly brings
on this state of the constitution, and without it, it would seem that
gout could not be produced. Here then is an effectual method of
curing the gout, which will no more return, if this method be
strictly persevered in, than the smallpox will attack the
constitution after inoculation.

During the fit therefore, I would say, nearly in the words of Dr.
Darwin, Drink no malt liquor on any account. Let the beverage at
dinner consist of two glasses of Madeira, diluted with three half
pints of water; on no account whatever drink any more wine or
spirituous liquors in the course of the day. Eat meat constantly at
dinner, without any seasoning, but with any kind of tender
vegetables, that are found to agree. When the fit is removed, use the
warm bath twice a week, an hour before going to bed, at about 93
degrees, or 94 degrees of heat. Keep the body open by means of
lenitive electuary and rhubarb; for there is an objection to the
tincture I mentioned, as containing alcohol. Use constant, gentle
exercise; but never so violent as to bring on great fatigue. The
grand secret, however, in the cure, as has been already observed, but
which cannot be too often inculcated, is to abstain, in toto, from
every thing that contains alcohol.

In short, though in acute diseases medicines are highly useful, a
chronic disease can never be cured, and the healthy state
reestablished, by them alone. To effect a cure in such cases, we must
reform our mode of life, change our bad habits into good ones; and
then, if we have patience to wait the slow operations of nature, we
shall have no reason to regret our former luxuries.

LECTURE XIV.
NERVOUS COMPLAINTS, &c.

In this lecture I propose to take a view of some of those affections,
which have been commonly, but improperly known by the appellation of
nervous complaints, because it has been supposed by many that they
are owing to a deranged state of the nerves, which, however, is by no
means the case; for I hope to be able to make it appear, that these
symptoms arise from a general affection of the excitement of the
system. In short, by far the greater number of these complaints,
arise from such a state of the excitement as approaches
predisposition, or perhaps ran