A treatise on gout and rheumatic gout (rheumatoid arthritis) / by Alfred Baring Garrod.

  • Garrod, Alfred Baring, 1819-1907.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on gout and rheumatic gout (rheumatoid arthritis) / by Alfred Baring Garrod. 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.

    29/662 (page 9)
    known patients to liave been altogether cured by abstain- ing from wine, rurgativcs arc prescribed, especially combinations of scamrnony, colocyntli, claterinm, and aloes, also the hermodactylus, a variety of colchiciim, the prejudicial effects of which arc ordered to be obviated by combining it with aromatics, as myrrh, anise, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, and mastich. Bitters of various kinds are also recommended, amongst which is the birthwort, afterwards so much used in the celebrated Portland powder. Amongst local applications, we find sinapisms and blisters advised, as well as repellent lotions; and for the treatment of chalk-stones, ointments containing oil, turpentine, ammoniaciim, dragon’s blood, and litharge. Aetius, who also lived at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, considered gout here- ditary, and dependent on local debility, combined with a superabundance of humours; that it was most appro- priately treated by first evacuating the latter by bleeding and purging, and afterwards strengthening the weakened part, lie also attributed great efficacy to- the use of fiiction in gout, not indeed during the severit}’’ of the inflammation, but when this had to a great extent sub- sided ; he employed oil mixed with salt as an external application. Paulus zEgineta likewise considered gout dependent on two combined causes, weakness of the affected parts and morbific humours, the latter fixing themselves upon joints already weak, and by stretching the ligaments, producing pain. yEgineta regarded gouty and rheumatic, or arthritic complaints, as of the same nature, but differ- ing in the seat of the affection; when it was located in the feet only he called it Podagra, but when extensively diffused over many joints. Arthritis ; he also thought that the abnormal humours might vary in character, and