Gout : its cause, nature, and treatment with directions for the regulation of the diet / by John Parkin.

  • Parkin, John, 1801-1886.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gout : its cause, nature, and treatment with directions for the regulation of the diet / by John Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more specific, cause, we must deny the inference ; inasmuch as the same agents are frequently in operation, without producing the same result. They can only act, therefore, by exciting a paroxysm in those in whom the gouty diathesis has been already formed; the same as the former agents act, by predisposing the individual to be more easily brouarht under the influence of the primary, or specific, cause. We thus find, that there are in this disease, as in many others, a specific, or primary, and, often, a predisposing and exciting cause ; the whole of which may be concerned in the production of a paroxysm, but of which the first is abso- lutely necessary, while the latter are only accidental, being sometimes present and some- times absent. In addition to these causes, there is another, and a very important one too. This is, what has been termed the proximate, or immediate, cause of disease. An individual may be exposed to the remote, or specific, cause of diseases, without experiencing an attack, as we constantly witness during the prevalence of epidemic diseases—a fraction only of the population, and, sometimes, a very small fraction, being affected. It is the same with endemic diseases. If a stranger traverses the campagna of Rome during the night, and in the unhealthy season, he will be almost certain to have an attack of ague afterwards ; but