JOS BRITISH PHYSICIANS. heel, calf of liis leg, or ankle ; it is at first gentle, increases by degrees, and resembles that of dislo- cated bones : towards the following night it reaches its height, accommodates itself nicely to the va- rious forms of the bones of the instep, whose liga- ments it seizes, resembling the gnawing of a dog, and becomes, at length, so exquisite, that the part affected cannot bear the weight of the clothes upon it, nor the patient suffer any one to walk hastily across the chamber. The severity of this first attack continues for twenty-four hours, when the sulferer enjoys a little ease, begins to perspire, falls asleep, and when he awakes finds the pain much abated, but the part swollen. The next day, and, perhaps, for the two or three following days, towards evening, the torture returns, but remits towards the time of cock-crow. In a few days, the other foot is destined to endure the same excru- ciating agony." Sydenham goes on to enumerate the catalogue of complaints that afflict the gouty person, — "till at last he is worn out by the joint attacks of age and of the disease, and the mise- rable wretch is so happy as to die." And here he makes the following moral observation : — " But (which consideration ought to be a comfort to others as well as to myself, who, though we are but moderately endowed with mental acquire- ments and the gifts of fortune, yet are afflicted with this disease) thus have lived, and thus at length have died, great kings and potentates, generals of armies, admirals of fleets, philoso- phers, and many other equally distinguished per- sonages." With this cruel disease lie contended from the early age of twenty-five ; and he speaks of
