Specification of Christopher Gullett : medicine for gout, &c.

  • Gullett, Christopher.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Christopher Gullett : medicine for gout, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Giillett's Medicine for Gout, dfc. and in what manner the same may be performed, by and for the instruction of persons ignorant of the management of electrical machines and of the electrical fluid, and how even such persons as never saw the electrical machine may safely, easily, and expeditiously be taught to cure this “ opprobrium 5 medicorum,” the gout, which, in the head and stomach particularly, hath hitherto been deemed not only incurable (unless by the strength of nature), but so very dangerous as scarce to admit of any attempt to expell it, though the patients were even at the last extremity, and frequently died in the greatest agonies for want of some immediately effectual remedy, as every City and Town 10 in the Kingdom can witness to their sorrow), I, the said Christopher Gullett, do hereby subjoin as a part of the said Specification an extract from the substance of the instructions (as thus far settled), which I intend to get printed for my deputies, servants, agents, and such other persons as I may hereafter license or agree with (viz.), from the Patentee’s instructions to the licensees 15 (that is, persons licensed). 1st. For expelling the gout from the head and stomach.—Let the electrical machine, being dry, free from dust, and warm, be placed on a table as near the patient’s bed as convenient (the cylinder and conductor standing end¬ ways towards the patient’s side). Then let a wire be fastened to the brass ball 20 fixed in the end of the conductor for conveying the electrical fluid to that part of the patient’s head where the greatest pain is, by the licensee’s holding the glass handle (having a brass ball screwed into it), and the other end of the wire twisted round it, and, applying the ball to the patient’s head ; let another wire be fastened to the knob or crook at the back of the cushion behind the 25 cylinder, and the other end of that wire (having a brass knob wrapt in flannell either with or without a brass handle) lain upon or held to the patient’s breast where the greatest pain is; when the machine begins to be turned and worked, the fluid, being conveyed as aforesaid by the licensee from the conductor to the patient’s head, will pass from thence to the breast, and there will be 30 attracted by the brass knob and conveyed back by the wire to supply the cushion of the machine, and thus form a circuit and current of electrical fluid round and round continually. In this case the cushion is and must continue insulated by the glass stem, (and no chain or wire must be hung behind it for supplying it with fluid, as in common cases, from the table). After working 35 thus for six or ten minutes, the balls may be varied and shifted, and so every two or three minutes, until, you have gone all round the head and breast, and then return to the principal places again. For the better illustration of this article, I have added a small Figure in the margin with explanations. 2d. In cases of the head only the fluid to be passed in like manner from