Rheumatism: its nature, causes, and cure : gout: its nature, causes, cure, and prevention / by James Alexander.

  • Alexander, James.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rheumatism: its nature, causes, and cure : gout: its nature, causes, cure, and prevention / by James Alexander. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    276/292 (page 256)
    leads to that enfeebled circulation, in which the action of the heart and lungs becomes impaired and excretion diminished. Now I cannot pro- fess to minister to a mind diseased, or to suggest a remedy for the removal of all those asperities which are inseparable from our lot in this life; but if men liable to gout will not take that exercise in the open air which is the best means of insuring the action of all the great decar- bonizing emunctories, they must adopt artificial means for the removal from the circulation of the nitro-carbonaceous impurities with which the blood is loaded, or they must, by permitting them to remain and clog the mechanism of life, be content to bear Avith the gout. Most men think if they pay a daily visit to the Temple of Cloacina that they have done a great thing for themselves and something for their country; many neglect even this slight devotion at the shrine of health, and very feAv are aware that even in a state of health only one eighth portion by weight of the food and drink they SAvallow is throAvn out of the system by the bowels; in that constipated state which occurs before an attack of gout, considerably less than one eighth the normal proportion is given off in this manner, and as the skin and lungs are acting but feebly, it cannot be a matter of surprise that that redun-