Copy 1, Volume 13

The commentaries upon the aphorisms of Dr. Herman Boerhaave ... : concerning the knowledge and cure of the several diseases incident to human bodies / by Gerard Van Swieten ; translated into English.

Gerard van Swieten

Date:: 1765-1773

Credit: The commentaries upon the aphorisms of Dr. Herman Boerhaave ... : concerning the knowledge and cure of the several diseases incident to human bodies / by Gerard Van Swieten ; translated into English. Source: Wellcome Collection.

10/544 page 2

$% The GOUT. 8e<a.iaj4; For although, as we fhall fee afterwards, it may feize on many other parts, and from thence acquire another appellation • yet the foot is the place on which it always makes the firft attack (fee§ 1259). Hence the origin of the name iWa'ypa yiy- vofxzvYl itoSwv aypa. Podagra rU0C0r, quaji pedum cap- <tura fim\ “I am called the gout, making the cc feet, as it were, my prey.” We need be at no lofs therefore about what name is to be applied to this difeafe, whenever it fixes on any other place ; it is onlv joining that cruel epithet agrah to the name of the part affedbed: thus, when the hands, for inftance, are feized, it is called chiragra\ when the knees, gonagra ; and fo forth. Nam pedem, genu, acetabulum, coxendices, femora, manus, fcapulas, brachia, rojira, carpos^adedit, .depafcitur, inflammat, coquit*. “ For it « takes hold of all thefe parts, the foot, knee, fockets “ of the joints, hips, thighs, hands, blade bones, « bones of the nofe, arms and wrifts, gnawing, waft- “ ing, burning, inflaming, and vexing them at the cc molt painful rate.” This baleful, this inaufpicious-term, the gout, is however, in a more peculiar manner offenfive to the generality of patients, who, for the firft time, lie un¬ der the pangs of this diforder, well knowing how highly the brotherhood divert themfelves at the ex¬ pence of a new fellow-fufferer ; and fhould they ac¬ knowledge the real name, ab amicis omnibus in trium- pho ducitur d • “ it would be matter of triumph to all 4C their acquaintance for this reaibn they would fain conceal the difeafe, and are ready to afcribe the pains they endure to any other caufe than the true; nay, fo far as fometimes to be in the utmoft rage of dlfpleafure with any phyfician who but ventures to drop the final left hint concerning the real name ot the diftemper. The defire, in gouty patients,, of difguifing : the a Lucian Tragopod. Tom. HI. pag. 6;6. b Ibid. p. 671„ c Ibidem, p. 652. 4 Ibid. 655, &66$.$