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OUT AND  ITS CURE
J. COMPTON BURNETT, M. D.
 i"is, was die Exkretnente macht, was die Faces im Leibe niacht,
 Du Humores heissest, dieselbe sind nicht die Krankheit. Das ist
: Krankheit, die dasselbe macht, dass es also wird. Wer seihet
sselbe ?  Niemand. Wer greift es ? Niemand. Wie kann denn
lArzt in humoribus die Krankheit suchen und ihren Ursprung
;lden aus denselben, dieweil  sie von  der Krankheit werden
boren, und nicht die Krankheit von ihnen ? "—Hohenheim.
   PHILADELPHIA:
BOERICKE & TAFEL.
       1895- 
,\
Ay -\fV
  WE
  300
COPYRIGHTED BY

BOERICKE & TAFEL,

   I895.
>-, £ *rv7'<*
A*-?* 
            NOTICE

AFTER CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF THE
INNER MARGIN AND TYPE OF MATERIAL
WE HAVE SEWN THIS VOLUME BY HAND
SO IT CAN BE MORE EASILY OPENED
AND READ. 
 
PREFACE.
   For  the successful  treatment of Gout
it is necessary to have a clear idea of what
constitutes its various parts; notably must
we differentiate between  its pre-deposit
symptoms and its post-deposit symptoms,
for much of the want of success in its cure
is due to a mixing-up of the two sets of
symptoms.  The symptoms that  precede
and lead up to the uric acid retentions in
the blood are a series by themselves; those
due to the uric acid in the blood and which
lead up to the gouty deposit as an attack,
or as chronic deposits,  are a second series.
The former really  spell  arthritic  caco-
pepsia, while the latter  are  synonymous
with uric  acid  poisoning;  in the  one we
deal with the  producing  power,  in the
other  with the product. 
4
Preface.
  This  differentiation  being made, we
proceed on two lines with the treatment,—
the one to get rid of the gouty attack and
the deposits, and the other, the more im-
portant, to deal with that which leads  to
the production of the uric material.
  The following pages are intended to set
forth the writer's method of procedure.
          J. COMPTON BURNETT.

  86 Wimpole Street, W.,
      January, 1895. 
GOUT  AND  ITS CURE.
'HpHK various conditions known
     or thought to be manifesta-
tions of gout lie  on either side
of every medical path,  and most
medical practitioners  have to deal
with them in some form or another.
Gout in this country is so common,
that not a few persons are  in  the
habit of treating their gouty attacks
with their family doctor's favorite
preparation of Colchicuni, aided, or
supposedly aided,  by a liver-pill
and alkalies, such as lithia, potash,
or soda.  Most of us have our own
    A 
2
Gout and its Cure.
notions of the right diet  for the
gouty; and as to drinkables, a smart
lady in the North once remarked
to me  (on  hearing me tell  my
patient to drink  Scotch whisky
well diluted with water), "Oh! I
see  you   are  a   Sco tch- whisky
doctor.  It seems to me that the
only difference between you gout
doctors lies  in the kind of whisky
you  order; you order  Scotch, and
Dr. Moore  used to order Irish.  I
often tell papa that if  I were he I
would  drink both,  and  then  he
would  be sure  to be right."  The
sting of the remark lay in the fact
that I  had the local reputation of
being strongly opposed to alcohol
in any and every form, notably in
the  treatment  of gout,  and  the
partial  modificatiou  of my views 
Gout and its Cure.       3
came about in this wise:—I  was
once attending a country squire for
an  inflamed knee, when his aged
father-in-law, the late  Sir Edward
X., then over 80 years of age, came
over  to see  him.   While  there
on  a visit, he  had a smart  attack
of gout, which I was called upon to
treat, but my Aconite and Bryonia
did not help either him or me.  Col-
chicuni I would not give, and, more-
over, I did not allow him any alcohol
at  all.  I had been  taught  that
alcohol  made gout, and so I  felt it
to be my duty to  get  rid of the
cause first, and then the feverish-
ness was met by the Aconite, and the
pains and swelling by Bryonia
(pains worse from movement).  All
that seemed simple enough; only
Sir  Edward got worse, and told me 
4       Gout and its Cure.
very plainly that he did not believe
in my new-fangled  treatment  of
gout at all, exclaiming, " My little
doctor always gets me round in a
week or ten days."   Said little doc-
tor was  telegraphed for, and sure
enough he had Sir Edward out driv-
ing in the park in  about a week.


  What  was  the   little  doctor's
treatment? Port wine!
  Said he  to  me:   "You see, Sir
Edward's  not really a strong man
and  never was, although he  has
held on a pretty big span ; still he
is really a weak man, and he never
could stand anything  unless you
stoked him up a bit."

  How long has Sir Edward been
your patient? 
Gout and its Cure.
  "Forty years."
  Have you always  "stoked him
up" as you say?
  " Oh yes, always."
  Why?
  " Because I found I never could
get him well of  anything without
plenty of port wine."
  Do  you  treat  many  cases  of
gout?
  "Oh no, very few; people in my
district  are  too poor to  get the
gout;  they work too hard.  I get
it occasionally myself."
  Do  you take plenty of port wine
yourself?
  "No, no; it would kill me."
  But you cure Sir Edward with
port wine and  yourself  not; what
do you take yourself? 
6      Gout and its Cure.
   " Oranges, if they are to be got."
   Oranges ?
   "Yes, I eat  two oranges  three
or four times a day; drink plenty
of clean  cold water; avoid game
and beef; live on  plenty of green
stuff, particularly salads; keep my
skin  clean and active, and I soon
get rid of the enemy."
   And  what about  alcohol ? are
you a teetotaler ?
   " No, not a bit of it, except when
I am gouty; then I go  on oranges
and  plenty  of  cold  water,  and I
soon wash out the gout, and then
I go on as usual and take whatever
is  going; with my  big  country
practice, long distances, and small
fees, I  cannot  be bothered with
diet;  bread and cheese, beer, and 
Gout and its Cure.
7
bread and milk, bacon and eggs, or
bread and butter and eggs, are what
I  usually   get at  my patients'
homes."
  The little doctor could give  me
no guiding rule as to the best diet
in gout, viz., when to give plenty of
port wine,  or  when  to  rely upon
oranges and plenty of water.  But
from   subsequent  observation I
have  been  able to arrive   at  the
following conclusions, viz.:—
  i. People who have  descended
from ancestors long accustomed to
the use of  stimulants  generation
after generation, these need  stimu-
lants  in  their  debilitating illness,
and therefore   in their  attacks of
gout.   They  also need a  certain
amount of  building up.  If they
are dieted too severely and deprived 
8       Gout and its Cure.
of their alcoholic stimulants they
get weaker and weaker, and their
gout  gets  the entire  mastery;
whereas with a sustaining diet and
i reasonable amount of stimulant,
chey get well  and thrive on their
ancestral  constitutional basis.

  2. In certain brain-wrorkers (and
in  their  immediate descendants)
whose  nervous systems are  ex-
hausted,  if you take  away their
stimulants they are apt to fare very
badly.

  3. This exhaustion gout, when
produced by abstemiousness, can be
cured by better diet and stimulants.
I knew (socially, not professionally)
an eminent Q.C. who had been for
many  years  a  total  abstainer,
lived very sparingly, but who was 
Gout and its Cure.
9
 a  martyr  to  chronic  gout,  and
 eventually died of it about 60 years
 of  age.  He  was  a  great  brain-
 worker, and of strong constitution.
 He was often asked to take some
 stimulants, but  strenuously  re-
 fused.
  4. A gouty patient,  who after-
 wards  came  under my care,  was
 dieted  by a famous anti-fat doctor,
 and in a week or  two he developed
 a terrible attack of gout that com-
 pletely broke his seemingly power-
 ful  constitution.  During the fast-
 ing experiments of certain persons
 at the Royal Aquarium  here in
 London, frequently done during the
 past few years, the fasters had, over
and over again,  attacks of gout,
though water only was partaken of.
  So I conclude  that  food  and 
io     Gout and its Cure.
stimulants per se are not neces-
sarily the cause of gouty attacks.
The thing presents  itself to my
mind thus:—Just as  in the case of
a smoky chimney almost any kind
of  fuel will fill  the  room  with
smoke, so in gout almost any kind
of food will produce  gout; but the
real fault  lies, not in the fuel, but
in the  chimney;  not in the food,
but in the organism.

  I call  these  cases of gout Ex-
haustion  Gout, and certainly they
need stimulants.

  I have reason to believe that Sir
James  Paget holds  a view some-
thing like this,  though  he may
possibly express it differently; for
I once ordered a gentleman who
consulted me for what I considered 
Gout and its Cure.      n
exhaustion  gout,  to   take   two
glasses of sound port daily with his
dessert after dinner, but he refused
compliance, and walked out of my
consulting-room straight over to
see Sir  James Paget,  telling Sir
James nought  of having been to
see me.   Oddly enough Sir James
also  ordered   him  a  stimulant
(though I forget what), and on his
objecting to take any stimulant on
the ground that it would increase
his gout, Sir James said, "Never
mind your gout;  get  up  your
strength, and then you will be better
able to master your gout." Clearly
in these cases of exhaustion  gout
we have to do with a very different
affair to  that which  yields  to
oranges and cold water. 
12      Gout and its Cure.
         SURFEIT GOUT.

  I call surfeit gout that which is
cm-able by abstemiousness either as
regards food or stimulants, or both.
In such  cases I have knowm an
attack of gout to be brought on by
a single bottle of beer or  a  pint of
even  the  driest  champagne, and
on one occasion from eating goose-
berries ; in such cases  all  alcoholic
stimulants, and  certain foods, yet
in different degrees, act like oil on
a fire; they set up a blaze.

  In  exhaustion  gout   alcoholic
stimulants act like oil on  troubled
waters:  they calm the waves. 
Gout and its Cure.     13
EXHAUSTION GOUT AND SURFEIT
 GOUT IN THE SAME INDIVIDUAL.
  There are, further, cases of gout
that seem to partake of both qualities
—exhaustion and surfeit—and here
the question of stimulants is very
difficult  to  decide; on the whole,
I have  obtained my best curative
results  by  changing the kind  of
stimulant instead of allowing them
to stick to one kind.   Thus I have
rather a penchant for allowing a
small quantity of  dry champagne
for dinner once or twice a week, the
same quantity of a sound claret once
or twice a  week, and whisky and
water, or whisky and soda-water, on
other days.  Allowance must always
be made for  hereditary proclivities,
       B 
14      Gout and its Cure.
habits, and modes of life. We must
ever keep before our minds that in
the treatment of gout we are dealing
with adults and not with children;
our  concern is not to dictate  an
ideal dietary for  the normal  indi-
vidual under hypothetically perfect
conditions, but we have to do with
sufferers from gout, whom it is our
business to get well, and keep well
and vigorous as long  as possible.
In other wTords,  rearing children
requires  a very different regimen
and dietary to what experience may
find  best for   maintaining gouty
adults.

  Neither is it desirable to limit a
gouty man or woman to the barest
necessaries  of  life, and say,  it is
possible  to live on bread, fruit, and
clean water, therefore you must eat 
Gout and its Cure.     15
 nought but  bread and  fruit, and
 drink only the ale that Adam drank.
   Taken in its simple elementary
 forms, we may regard the exhaus-
 tion gout and the surfeit gout  as
 respectively inherited or acquired.
 In the most simple form the heredi-
 tarily gouty may  get  gout  on al-
 most any diet.  Surfeit gout is self-
 produced by excessive input or in-
 adequate output;  too much is put
 in, too little is put out, and  hence
 the ureal smoke and soot which  is
 the gouty product. A gouty father
 begets a child while he is actively
 gouty;  like begets like, and hence
 the offspring is of necessity gouty
 on  any diet whatsoever;   such
 children pass grit and gravel as
 soon  as they get  away from the
pure milk  diet.   A milk  cure for 
16     Gout and its Cure.
gout  echoes  all  down  through
time.   But active, middle-aged men
in the full swing of daily life com-
monly find a milk diet inadequate
if they keep at work.  " It does not
seem  to satisfy me," say they; or
" even when  I  am full of milk I
seem  to be empty."   The  fact is,
milk is food  for the very young—
calves and babes.

           GOUTINESS.

  Gout is an  acute  disease, and
shows itself paroxysmally,  though
the word  also expresses the con-
stitutional crasis or state;  and so
frequently is this latter the case,
that I have time and again heard
patients exclaim, "Oh! everything
is gout with the  doctors  now! " 
Gout and its Cure.      17
When we  say " gout" we  really
mean  that  the individual  lives
goutily, whether such  individual
gets attacks  of gout or not; thus
the child of a gouty father may
teethe goutily and have gouty ur-
ticaria, and here the gouty qual-
ity cannot be eliminated by gum-
lancing or soothing ointments.
  Assuming that both parents of a
given individual are pronouncedly
gouty, how should  the offspring be
other than gouty ?  In the painful
menstruation of young ladies I have
over  and  over again  cured the
dysmenorrhcea by treating the pain-
ful affection as of gouty quality,—
in fact, as gout. It would be better to
restrict the term gout to the form
of disease that occurs in attacks of
paroxysmal arthritis, and use the 
18      Gout and its Cure.

word  goutiness  to designate the
more  or less  hereditary quality of
the constitutional crasis.  In fact,
I would use  the  words goutiness
and gout to indicate the same rela-
tion which consumptiveness bears
to consumption.   But in this mat-
ter of terminology custom will fix
our words for us, no  matter what
we say or do.

         WHAT IS GOUT?
  It would take more time than I
have  to spare to enter upon the
subject  of what  gout really is, by
going over the innumerable theories
that have been advanced from the
year one until now.  One  line of
thought,  however,   runs   right
through  most of them, viz., some
reference is made to the urine or to 
Gout and its Cure.      19
one or other of its constituents, ac-
cording to the terminology current
at the time, such as tartarus, stone,
gravel, grit, urea, uric acid, urate of
sodium.  The names of the disease
have very little interest,  because
gout in  its  ordinary paroxysmal
manifestation, quoad  its  habitat,
will always be a podagra, a cheir-
agra, which says but little.  Deriv-
ing  gout from  gutta via goutte is
etymologically not/without interest,
but clinically of no value, whereas
the names that refer to its uric  or
urinous nature do roughly indicate
the nature of its product. My own
notion of the nature of gout may be
expressed in a very few words: The
gouty product is the uric smoke and
soot of the human economy,—that is,
the pure paroxysmal affection com- 
20      Gout and its Cure.
monly manifesting itself as  pod-
agra, and  more or  less in many
varities of goutiness.

  The thing presents itself to my
mind thus:—Given the human or-
ganism, it takes up its food, uses it,
and then gets rid of the products of
its vital phenomena, first by way of
the bowels and then by way of the
skin and kidneys.  Where the renal
excretion  is such that some of the
uric  matter (urea, uric acid, urate
of sodium) remains in the blood, it
is deposited in certain of the tis-
sues, and  when it culminates in,
say,  the big toe, we get the classic
gouty attack. I am for  the moment
not concerned with the precise form
of the urea as so deposited, nor yet
whether due to one cause or an-
other, but with the simple elemen- 
        Gout and its Cure.      21

tary conception of the substantive
material nature of the gouty prod-
uct,—in other words, gout, for me,
is ureal poisoning. Of course I part
company with all those who regard
gout  as merely uric acid deposits,
and who maintain that the uric acid
is the disease.  I grant that the
uric acid produces  the sufferings,
but I maintain that the disease gout
is that which produces the uric acid,
—in  fact, the Paracelsic motto  on
my title-page expresses exactly my
philosophy.  Pretty well  all the
phenomena of gout square well with
this conception of its nature.   It
seems to me, further, that gout
stands in some relation to the spleen
as well as to the kidneys and sweat
glands.   It does not appear to me
that gout has so much to do with 
22      Gout and its Cure.
the liver or its functions, and stir-
ring up the liver to increased action
and purging the bowels do not, so
far as I have been able to discover,
aid in  the very least in the cure of
gout,  acute  or  chronic,  unless  a
primary liver affection be its prime
cause  in  the organopathic sense.
Of course gout  may further affect
the liver and bowels as well as any
other  part; what I mean is, that
these  do  not necessarily conduce
physiologically  to  the  production
of gout. And why I feel so satisfied
of the  relatively unimportant par-
ticipation of the liver and intestine
in the production of gout is because
I  have many times had  to treat
severe  cases of gout in which pur-
gation  had been thoroughly carried
out with no advantage  whatever,
but rather the contrary ; and, more- 
Gout and its Cure.      23
over, it is by no means an uncom-
mon thing for very gouty people to
suffer from habitual looseness of
the bowels, and yet the gout does
not diminish.   On the other hand,
as before remarked, I am  strongly
of opinion that the spleen is very
intimately concerned in  the pro-
duction of gout.
  There  does  not  exist, to  my
knowledge, any  treatise  on  the
homoeopathic  treatment  of gout,
and the treatment of gout is, I be-
lieve, not  the  strongest point  of
the homoeopathic school.   This is
very likely not true of individual
homoeopathic practitioners, whose
successes  in gout may have  been
many and mighty;  but speaking
generally, the homoeopathic litera-
ture of gout is not brilliant.  And
this I believe to be due to the fact 
24      Gout and its Cure.
that gout is very difficult to cure
dynamically, because we have be-
hind  the symptoms the uric de-
posits;  and remedies that are ho-
moeopathic to the symptoms of the
gouty patients  from the deposits
are not  necessarily homoeopathic
to  the  state  productive  of   such
deposits; and it must  be  mani-
fest that remedies, to be really cur-
ative  of arthritis,  must  be  hom-
oeopathic to the state productive of
such deposits of urates within the
tissues.  It  is not enough to cure
the symptoms due to the urates: to
be the remedy of the case, not only
the uric deposits must  be included
within  the  simillimum,  but  the
state which produces such deposits.
Whether any one remedy can  be
expected to be homoeopathic to the 
        Gout and its Cure.     25

state productive of gouty deposits,
and of such deposits themselves,
may  be a debatable point.   The
production of deposits of  urates of
sodium in pigeons by Ebstein and
others by injections of bichromate
of potassium is not  what I  mean
exactly, for the gouty state  takes
time to be produced, and  does not
consist merely in the deposition of
urate of sodium into the superacid
tissues.  However we  here need
more knowledge.   It is just this
point that has not received due at-
tention in the homoeo-therapeutics
of gout, and hence it has come  to
pass that our literature on the sub-
ject is so very poor.   No doubt the
clinical work of our school is better
than our hereto relative literature,
for some of our best clinicians do 
26
Gout and its Cure.
not write; still our literature ought
to be the register of our best work,
and in this register outsiders should
be  able to find ample proofs that
the homoeopathic principle is use-
ful, and  workable  also in such a
substantive disease as gout in its
acute form.  It is  not enough to
affirm that the principle of similars
is workable:  we  must prove it;
and this can be done.

  Now, so long as I  kept to the
ordinarily commended homcepathic
remedies for gout, so long were my
results mostly only tedious recov-
eries ; cures they could not be fairly
called.  One thing only  could I
boast of in the simply symptomatic
homoeopathic  treatment of gout:
my patients recovered—slowly and
tediously, it is true—but still they 
Gout and its Cure.
27
recovered completely, with undam-
aged constitutions and  unharmed
organs, and the gentle treatment
not only  ended thus in  integral
restitution, but subsequent attacks
became  milder and less frequent,
so that  even that was, I think, a
fair record.   But we can do more
than that, as I will show.  Not a
few mighty  men  have expressed
the opinion that the proper role of
the physician is merely to pilot the
patient  from the  sea of sickness
into the harbour of health.  Still,
my own ambition is never satisfied
with such a  role;  my  constant
strivings are ever directed to being
the master of disease, and I am not
satisfied unless and until I deem
myself  the victor, always within
the limitations of " thus far and no
further." 
28      Gout and its Cure.
  In genuine gout we have to deal
with the attack: this is the moun-
tain of difficulty.

  I was very early in my career
warned against the use of Colchicum
in the cure of gout, because of its
deleterious effects on the kidneys.
        " Rely upon Colchicum in
gout, and you will get plenty of
Bright's disease," was the advice to
me given by a most experienced
clear-headed physician, and hence it
has come to pass that I have myself
no experience of Colchicum in gout,
good  or bad.  I do not remember
ever having prescribed it a single
time.   And  hence  the  gouty on-
slaught has always been, for  me, a
difficult task.  For  there can  be no
doubt,  judging  by  the  clinical
records of Colchicum, that of  all 
        Gout and its Cure.     29

known  remedies  used  thus far,
Colchicum  has far and  away the
greatest influence over the gouty
manifestations. My own suspicions
are to the effect that Colchicuni  is
homoeopathic  to  some  of  these
external manifestations which  it
effectively gets rids of, but leaves the
uric deposits  in the blood and tis-
sues.   The  outside symptoms are
gone, the inside disease remains.
Is it not an oft-told tale that "X,
got the gout; he took Colchicum and
was much relieved, but—he was
later  on seized with great pain  in
the chest and died."
  Natrum muriaticum, 6 trit., has
helped me in some cases of acute
gout  very satisfactorily; the urine
thickened and deepened in color,
and the attack was broken up.   It
is still used by  me in gout pretty
       c 
30      Gout and its Cure.
considerably where prominent Nat.
mur. symptoms are present, and
specially  where the patient has
taken much quinine, or is chilly, or
his gouty attack is apt to be stirred
up by a visit to the seaside.  I use
6  grains   of the 6th  trituration
every two or three hours, and ex-
pect the  urine to  deepen  in color
and thicken within two days simul-
taneously  wherewith   the gouty
manifestations usually  abate.   I
have no faith in gout cures unless
they  thicken the  urine.  If the
heart is  weak or atheromatous  I
commonly rely on Gold: and it is a
veritable friend in need and indeed.
If the skin is fairly normal I use
iheAurum muriaticum 3* five drops
in a tablespoonful of water every
three or four hours.   If the skin is
very wet and patient sweats unduly 
        Gout and its Cure.      31

I give Aurum muriaticum natur-
atum 3X, in the same dose  as the
simple muriate, and am generally
not disappointed with the results. I
have also usedfaborandi and its al-
kaloid Pilocarpine with good results.
In the treatment of acute gout it is
sound practice to keep an eye on the
stomach first, the heart next, and
collaterally on the reciprocal rela-
tions, topographic and  pathologic,
of the heart and liver  and spleen
respectively;  and this because the
heart, with liver, spleen, stomach,
and kidneys,  are really the " inter-
ested parties " in acute gout. When
I speak of stomach I really mean
the epigastrium, and more precisely
speaking,  the   solar  plexus—to
which aether, zincum, and  hydro-
cyanic acid will  bring prompt and
efficient help. 
32      Gout and its Cure.
  HAVE WTE A REMEDY OR REMEDIES
    ESSENTIALLY HOMOEOPATHIC TO
    THE GUOTY ATTACK ?
    To this  I  think an affirmative
  answer  can  now  be given.  I
  propose to show that Urtica urens,
  the common stinging nettle, is such
V a one, and I thinkNatrummuriati-
  cum has strong claims to be so con-
  sidered also.  But Nat. mur. is a
  classic remedy in homoeopathy; it is
  well  known and much used by such
  as have gripped the true inwardness
  of homoeopathic drug-action.  As I
  will  presently relate, I have  used
  Urtica urens  a good  deal for  some
  years in ague and spleen affections,
  and  thus it comes to pass that I
  have had ample  opportunities of
  becoming  intimately  acquainted 
Gout and its Cure.     33
with  its powers.  Patients under
the influence of small material doses
of Urtica will often pass quantities
of  gravel.   The first  occasion  of
my  observing this  in a striking
manner was  in  a  middle-aged
maiden lady, who came over from
Germany to place herself under my
care,  who smelled so  strongly  of
nettles that it nauseated me when-
ever  it was my  duty  to examine
her.  She  had,  amongst  many
ailings, an enlarged spleen, and for
this splenic enlargement I gave the
mother tincture  of 6 rtica urens.  I
was led to use it from the burning
pains as well as the  odour.  This
lady passed a very large quantity of
gravel by the urine while under its
influence.   I did not attach very
much importance to this, as patient
was in the habit of passing consider- 
34      Gout and its Cure.
able quantities of gravel with her
motions, localised  abdominal pain
generally  preceding such an occur-
rence by a number of days.   She
was in the habit of indicating a spot
just  under  her  spleen  as  her
"gravel-pit." But when I observed
others who, being under the influ-
ence of Urtica urens, passed grit and
gravel pretty freely for the first time
in their lives, I came  to the  con-
clusion  that the Urtica possesses
the power of eliminating the urates
from the economy. And it slowly be-
came clear to my mind that  Urtica
might be  the very remedy  I  had
long been in quest of, viz.,aquickly-
acting,easily-obtainedhomceopathic
remedy for the attacks of gout, or
some of them, for of course we, of
experience,  never expect  uniform
results an}' more than we expect all 
Gout and its Cure.
the  trees in a  forest to be of the
same height.  I subsequently be-
came aware that  Urtica  urens is
contingently capable of producing
fever, as some subsequent experi-
ence will  show.  The fever of the
gouty attack is not great, but still
feverishness  is a  part  of such at-
tacks, and I should not feel sure of
of the homceopathicity of a remedy
thereto  did it not possess the symp-
tom "fever"  in its pathogenesis.
  I then  proceded to employ the
Urtica urens  in the  classic attacks
of genuine gout, and that with very
great satisfaction indeed.  Within
a few hours after beginning its use
the urine  becomes fairly free, of a
high colour, and the bottom of the
vessel  is  often found more  or
less covered with urates in the form
of  grit and  gravel,  and  simul- 
36      Gout and its Cure.

taneously herewith the gouty attack
begins to subside.*  I call the dis-
covery,  of  this gravel-expelling
power of Urtica, great;  well, it has
been  great  to me  in  my clinical
work, and my patients are generally
of the same opinion as myself,—so
much so that one or two of the com-
mercially minded among them have
over and over  again  urged me to
bring it out as my gout medicine;
but I have no respect for nostrums
or nostrum-mongers, and am quite
content to make it known as a most
valuable remedy in the treatment
of acute gout, as it cuts short the
attack in a safe manner, viz., by
ridding the economy of  the essence
  ■An allopathic neighbour tells me that ( rtica
was much used in olden times for gout—nil novi
sub sole ! 
Gout and its Cure.
 of the disease product, its actual
 suffering-producing material.
   I call  it a homoeopathic remedy
 because  I  believe it  to  be such,
 though it may be just an organo-
 pathic remedy and simply act as a
 splenic, for Urtica  is undoubtedly
 a powerful splenic, as I have often
 clinically   demonstrated.    The
 provings  of Urtica have thus far
 been only elementary, and its mode
 of action has yet to be studied; but
 if time permit I will argue the point
 at length later on.   It is my sheet-
 anchor in both gout and gravel. In
 gravel it facilitates and accelerates
 its passage,  and ends  by  curing
 the colic casually.   My usual mode
 of administering it is by  giving  5
drops of  the mother tincture  in  a
wineglassful of quite warm water,
frequently repeated, say every two 
38      Gout and its Cure.

or three hours.  Only yesterday
morning I was called to see a gen-
tleman  78  years of age suffering
from "his old enemy," viz., pains in
his left kidney region. I prescribed '
Urtica every two hours, and called
again late in the evening.  .  .   .
" Oh! the pain is gone, and I have
passed a lot of  gravel."   In my
practice this is an oft-told  tale.  In
the treatment of gout and  gravel it
may be of importance to remember
that the nettle is not an uncommon
plant, and that nettle-tea acts just
as well  as the tincture of which I
make use.  The nettle is a very
curious plant, that appears to follow
man the world  over.  I have read
that its original habitat  is some-
where in Asia, whence supposedly
started the wanderings of the peo-
ples.  As we all know, it dies down 
        Gout and its Cure.     39

in the winter and shoots out again
in the spring.  Certain it is that it
follows  man wherever he goes.  I
lately inquired of a gentleman resi-
dent in Western Australia whether
there was any nettle indigenous to
that region, and received a reply to
the effect that he knew of no Aus-
tralian nettle, but that the English
nettle sprang up everywhere near
human  habitations.   Last  year,
when in the country for my holi-
days, I searched about  to find out
where the nettles best throve, and
found that the  plant  was  most
flourishing  in  and  at  the  sides
of ditches which carried off the fluid
sewage from the cottages, and thus
possibly  living to some  extent on
urinous food.   This point is some-
what  interesting and  suggestive. 
 40     Gout and its Cure.


   STORY OF THE NETTLE AS A
            MEDICINE.

   Although nothing to do with my
 present thesis, except in so far as
 it gives  an account  of my  first
 acquaintance with the nettle  as a
 medicine, I am nevertheless con-
 strained to give  a  history of the
 nettle as a medicine in gout, ague-
 cake, and gravel; I mean, of course,
 my history of the nettle.
   Twenty years ago I was treating
 a lady for intermittent fever of the
 mild English type, when one day
 my patient came tripping somewhat
jauntily into my consulting-room
 and informed me that she was quite
 cured of her fever,  and wished to
 consult  me in regard to another
 matter.   I at once  turned  to  my 
Gout and its Cure.      41
notes of her case, and inquired more
closely into the matter of the cure,
in order to duly credit my prescribed
remedy with the cure, and the more
so as ague is not always easily dis-
posed of therapeutical^.  "Oh!"
said the lady, " I did not take your
medicine at all, for when I got home
I had such a severe attack of fever
that my charwoman begged me to
allow her to make me some nettle-
tea, as that was a sure cure of fever.
I consented, and she at once went
into our garden, where there are
plenty of nettles growing in a heap
of rubbish  and brickbats, and got
some nettles, of which she made
me  a  tea,  and I  drank  it.  It
made me very hot.  The fever left
me, and I have  not had it since."
  Homage   to the charwoman  of
nettle-tea fame! 
42      Gout and its Cure.

  The thing escaped my mind for
years,  but  one  day   being  in
difficulty  about a case  of  ague,  I
treated  it  with a tincture of nettles
and cured it straight away, and my
next case also, and  my next, and
almost  every case ever since, and
with very nearly uniform success.
Some of  my cases of ague  cured
with  nettle-tincture were  most
severe ones,  invalided home from
India and Burmah.    And quite
lately a patient living in Siam,  to
whom I had sent a big bottle  of
nettle-tincture, wrote  me:—" The
tincture you sent us has very greatly
mitigated  the  fever  we get here.
Please order us another bottle!"
  I  say  almost  every case  has
yielded  to Urtica urens;  every case,
of course,  has not. 
Gout and its Cure.     43
       THE GOUTY ATTACK.

  Two  years  since a middle-aged
gentleman of position  was down
with  an attack of gout that  had
relapsed over  and over again, and
he  had then  been in and out of
these attacks for nearly six months.
He had been swamped with alkalies
and  Colchicum,  and  mercilessly
purged  and lulled with narcotics
most alarmingly.  He thought he
would "try homoeopathy," and sent
for  the writer.  I put him on Urtica
urens as already described, and he
was out and about in a fortnight.
In  a couple of days  of the treat-
ment his urine became dark, plenti-
ful, and loaded with uric acid gravel.
His enthusiasm knew no bounds,
and he declared that no  remedy he 
44      Gout and its Cure.

had ever taken  (and he had  had
attacks of gout over and over again,
and had taken pretty-well all known
gout medicines) had really touched
his gout like the Urtica.  With  him
and  his club  intimates I became
known as Dr.  Urtica.
  A gentleman of 50 odd years of
age, now resident in London, con-
sulted me for gout in the fall of the
year 1890.   He had long lived in
India  and  suffered much from
malaria.   After  a  few weeks  of
Urtica, 10 drops in  a wineglassful
of water night and morning, he was
free from gout, and " My diarrhoea
has  gone,  my  gout  also;  my
digestion is better  than for long,
and my skin is much cleaner." 
Gout and its Cure.      45
  At the end of the year 1893 the
wife of a country squire in North-
umberland wrote me in great haste
that her goodman was down with a
severe bout  of  gout, and would I
send him medicine forthwith.  I
ordered him ten drops of the tincture
three times a day, and this rather
large dose as he is a very big man,
of a somewhat  thirsty disposition.
I heard no more of the matter ;  but
three or four months later the lady
consulted  me on her own account
here in  London,  and  incidentally
remarked,  "That medicine  soon
cured my husband's gout, and he
has not had any since." As before
remarked, there is fever with the
gouty attack, and a remedy to meet
it homoeopathically should show its
power of producing fever.  Urtica
D 
46      Gout and its Cure.

urens, in my hands, has produced
fever  over  and  over  again.  In
most cases in which its administra-
tion was followed by febrile symp-
toms there was, at least, an ante-
cedent history of malarialism, or
actually of recent or remote ague,
but this was not invariably the case.
Moreover the same thing obtains in
regard to China.  Hahnemann had
had ague before he proved the bark
on himself and found out its fever-
producing power, on which such a
huge  superstructure has been so
solidly erected,—i. e., homoeopathy.

  THE PATHOGENETIC FEVER OF
          Urtica urens.
  On October 3, 1893, a mother of
a family, pretty strong, 42 years of
age, came under my care for flatu- 
Gout and its Cure.
lent dyspepsia.  No history of ague
or malaria.  She complained of left-
sided pain, with coldness and chilli-
ness, which led me to prescribe
Urtica urens 0,  10 drops in water,
night and morning.  She reported :
" I cannot go on with this medicine;
it sets all my pulses beating, makes
me terribly giddy,* makes me feel
as if I were going to topple (for-
wards) in my bed, and  then a bad
headache  comes on,  and when  I
take it at  night it makes me very
feverish, so I am leaving it off."

  Just nine months later I saw
this  lady, and  inquired  if she re-
membered  the  very  first  remedy
I  gave her.  " Oh !  yes ; it made
me terribly giddy, and when I took
 *I have several times cured vertigo with
Urtica.—]. C. B. 
48      Gout and its Cure.
it at night it brought on fever, so I
could not go on with  it; and, in-
deed, I still  have some of it left at
home now." When she took the
Urtica in the morning she did not
observe that it caused any feverish
symptoms, only when  she took it
at night.  The fever of gout gen-
erally comes on at night.

               11.
  A middle-aged Indian officer suf-
fering from  Scinde boils consulted
me at  the end  of  September 1893
for said  boils, that were  growing
worse rather than better, although
he had been home on their account
on leave for five months.   He re-
ceived  from  me Urtica #,12 drops
in water night  and morning,  be-
cause I  regarded it as of malarial 
Gout and its Cure.     49
nature, for he had had ague years
ago, and was  still in the habit of
taking quinine off and on for fear
of its returning, since almost any
cold would bring  it back.   The
taking of the Urtica was followed
by a furious outburst of fever, so
severe  that  patient's   condition
caused his friends considerable anx-
iety.  He, however, made a quick
and complete  recovery.

               in.
  Another case was also that of an
officer invalided home from India
suffering from  " liver"  and  mal-
arialism, and  to whom I gave  10
drops of Urtica urens twice a day
for  his  general condition.  This,
too, was  followed with very severe
fever with  unusually long stages,
3&9D2Z 
50      Gout and its Cure.
from  which  he recovered  under
Natrum muriaticum, 6 trituration,
6 grains  every two hours.  The
subsequent report  being—"Those
powders cured the fever, but he was
very much pulled down."
  It is distinctly curious to note
the remarkable effects  of Natrum
muriaticum  and Urtica urens in
gout, as well as in ague and mal-
arialism.

Urate of  Sodium in  THE TREAT-
        MENT OF GOUT.
  I have used Urea, Uric acid, and
Urate of sodium in gout, and they
are of distinct value ;  they have
helped me most and  best  where
the deposits persist:  they stir up
the lazy deposits, so to  speak, and
help to eliminate them. 
Gout and its Cure.     51
   Daphne Mezereon and Physalis
alkekengi have  been used by me
in gout off and on with a certain
amount   of   benefit.    So  have
Bryonia,   Rhus,  Pulsatilla,  and
Bacillinum, and many  others, each
in its  own sphere, in  accordance
with the  indications and  data  of
homoeopathic   pharmacology,   as
well  as   with   my  own  clinical
experience.  And   Aconite   has
helped me up  to a certain  point
many times : notably in the stiff-
nesses that remain after gout have
I  found  Aconite 3X or 3, given
night  and  morning,  of positive
avail.
  Bellisperennis does distinct good
in the after-gout  debility of the
limbs ; and Cypripedium pubescens
(and also the powder Cypripedinum 
52      Gout and its Cure.
3X) is  its equivalent in the sphere
of the nerves in the after-gout ady-
namia and neurasthenia.  Where
there are actual calculi that require
solution before they can be passed,
Piperazinum purum bulks up very
imposingly, and  I think no thera-
peutist can afford to ignore it after
the record following.  I take it from
the Therapist, July 14, 1894 :—

" AN AGGRAVATED CASE OF NEPH-
  RITIC  CALCULI   SUCCESSFULLY
  TREATED WITH PIPERAZINE.
 By S. W. C. Brown, Surgeon to Trinidad
          Hospital, Colorado.
  "The author   having been  a
sufferer from nephritic calculi dur-
ing  the  past seven years,  and
helped at last by Piperazine after
all other remedies  had been tried 
Gout and its Cure.     53
without relief, brings his own case
before the profession in the some-
what deficient state of literature.
  " His trouble commenced about
seven years  ago  with  a  sudden
attack of nephritic colic,  accom-
panied  by the  passage of urate
crystals, so sharply defined and so
numerous that the mucous mem-
brane was cut  by  them.   They
increased in  number until half a
teaspoonful was passed  with each
evacuation of the bladder, generally
accompanied  by haematuria.  The
body-weight at this time was 260
lbs.; urine of normal specific gravity,
containing pus  corpuscles, blood,
and epithelial cells.  Shortly after
this attack eight calculi were passed,
five being unusually large, and all
exceeding painful, unconsciousness 
54      Gout and its Cure.
supervening  in the case of  four
from three to fifteen hours.

  " During the past seven years
every sudden jar or jolt produced
intense pain over the region of the
left kidney, and although eighteen
months ago the symptoms suddenly
ceased for a time on taking Herba
delvey, a local remedy of great re-
pute amongst the Mexicans, they
return again within  three months,
whilst  during the  treatment an
enlarged prostate and exceedingly
irritable bladder were probably due
to the remed}-.

  " In October last  a very violent
haemorrhage  took place from the
bladder or kidney, continuing for
four weeks with intense  pain,  con-
stant catheterisation being required. 
Gout and its Cure.     55
The incessant pain was  localised
over the left kidney, and necessi-
tated a hypodermic injection of 8
grains Morphia daily.
   " About  this time  the  author's
attention was called to Piperazine,
although having been on all sorts
of treatment  without relief, he was
rather sceptic  as to its value, and
did not  take  to it very readily.
The condition  was then—Weight
170  lbs.,  pulse 60, profuse  dia-
phoresis, very  feeble,  confined to
bed ; examination of urine showed
pus, albumen, blood, only 9 ounces
daily, which  required to be drawn
off by catheter, and large amounts
of urates.
  " The author commenced taking
15 grains Piperazine daily in one 
56      Gout and its Cure.
quart of water.   On the third day
the  urine  had  increased to  39
ounces, and continued to  gain  in
quantity until the normal quantity
was reached, which has continued
to  the  present  time.  The most
satisfaction was, however,  afforded
by  the  fact that on the fourth day
the intense pain began to grow less,
and continued  to do so  until  it
entirely ceased.   The Morphia was
gradually decreased, and Phenocoll
hydrochloride  in  10-grain  doses
taken in its place.  At the present
time weight is  increasing at the
rate of 4 lbs. per week, appetite is
very good, urine perfectly  normal,
and business capability restored.
The urine  examined  from time to
time whilst under Piperazine treat- 
Gout and its Cure.     57
ment showed the passage of excess-
ive quantities of urates, but they
were always in solution  and gave
no trouble in voiding.
  " In conclusion, Piperazine has
certainly shown itself in this case
a very prompt and powerful solvent
of uric acid calculi, and one of very
great value in those cases where the
knife has  hitherto been of doubtful
value.   (Notes on New Remedies?)"
  It is true  that weighty  men
declare that Bicarbonate of soda is
more than equal to Piperazine, but
this I  much  doubt.   However,  I
have no intention of dealing ex-
haustively with all the  gout re-
medies, but merely glance at the
outer world just to see what  they 
58
Gout and its Cure.
are doing and thinking in regard
to gout.  And having, so to speak,
gone  round the  show, I find but
very little  progress, if any, in the
old school's ways of thinking and
acting.   That is to say, the morbid
product of the disease only is re-
garded, the patient is lost sight of.
Thus we find  matters stand at the
Eleventh  International  Medical
Congress,  held   in  Rome, 1894.
Dr. C. Mordhorst,  of Wiesbaden,
there read a paper  entitled "Die
bei der Behandlung der Gicht und
Harnsaureconcremente in Betracht
kommenden   Mittel   und   ihre
Wirkungsweise," and there defines
gout  as  the  uric  acid diathesis,
and the  gist  of  the  whole thing
consists in  using alkalies to render 
Gout and its Cure.     59
the superacid gouty ones alkaline!
Here we again stumble against the
fundamental principle of curative
medicine,—Whether  are  diseases
best treated by contraries  or by
similars ?   That the  gouty do be-
yond question  derive  temporary
benefit  from Piperazine  and the
alkaline treatment admits  of no
manner of doubt;  they render the
superacid fluids of the organism for
the time being alkaline,  whereby
the superacidity is got rid of and
a transitory cure  is effected; but
the cure is ephemeral only, it does
not last.

  Mordhorst says (p. 25)—"The
only question to consider in the
effective treatment of  the  uric acid
diathesis  is to render  the  fluids 
60      Gout and its Cure
of the body as alkaline as possible."
Now this I deny absolutely.  It is
not possible to cure the uric acid
diathesis with alkalies, inasmuch as
the alkalescence thus produced is
only chemical, and not vital; as for
the alkalescence thus set up, to be
rendered permanent it is requisite
to continue unceasingly the input
of alkalies.  This Mordhorst him-
self admits,  and,  indeed,  proves;
and the raison  d"1 etre of his paper
at the International Congress is the
recommendation of the Weisbaden
Gichtwasser, which he says is the
best of  all  anti-arthritic   waters.
And what  is this  best of all anti-
gout waters  capable  of  effecting?
Let Dr. Mordhorst answer  (p. 46):
—" The   more   Gichtwasser   is 
Gout and its Cure.      61
drunk the sooner the sufferings are
relieved;  if as  much  as  three
bottles are daily consumed, it takes
from  three  to five weeks before
amelioration sets in ; if only one or
two bottles are daily drunk, it may
take  months  to  get  rid of  the
sufferings, but eventually all the
troubles disappear, and this con-
dition remains permanent so long
as the prescribed mode of life is not
too often sinned against, and from
half a bottle to a bottle  of the water
be daily drunk" !!  This is  posi-
tive  and  honest:  after  the  best
anti-gout  treatment  by  mineral
waters  and alkalies plus dietetic
and mode-of-life modifying restric-
tions, the permanent  condition is
one of ever-continuing restrictions,
and daily drinking of mineral water.
      E 
62      Gout and its Cure.
   Dr.  Mordhorst is himself very
gouty,  and he gives his own case
as one cured  by  the Wiesbaden
Gichtwasser  (pp.  48-9),  and he
thus describes his own case:—
   "I belong to a very gouty family.
My father suffered, my three sisters
still suffer from gout.  An elder
brother of mine died at the age of
46 years of uric acid renal calculi.
Already four or five  years  ago I
at times felt a painful  sensation on
pressure in my left leg along the
course of the sciatic nerve.  About
a year and a half ago I discovered
on the  inner side of my left knee
several small tophi, which  at times
pain on pressure, and inconvenience
me in walking.   I have also  dis-
covered gouty nodes in several other
parts of my body, but these are but 
Gout and its Cure.
seldom in evidence.  Whenever I
get pains in these affected parts, I
drink, for four or five days, two to
three bottles of Gichtwasser every
day, to get rid of them.  The urine
becomes strongly,and the cutaneous
secretions faintly, alkaline. A small
gouty tophus in the flexor pollicis
longus of my left thumb, that re-
mained from a slight acute attack,
disappeared,  all but slight  traces,
after a prolonged course  of  the
Gichtwasser."
  Note well that this is the cured
state.

  It must, therefore, be  manifest
that the mineral water, the alkaline
treatment of gout (and the piper-
azine cure must be reckoned to the
alkaline) is a cure, more or less, 
64      Gout and its Cure.
of the gouty products, but has little
or  no  influence  upon the  gout
disease  itself in the sense of the
uric acid diathesis.  The products
are got rid of; the power of pro-
ducing  remains unimpaired.  The
grit, gravel, tophi, and, with Pipera-
zine,  perhaps even calculi, can be
eliminated by the chemical treat-
ment, but  the diathesis  remains
untouched.
  But do I maintain that when the
gouty attack is got rid of with the
aid of Urtica or Natrum muriaticum
or  other  homoeopathic remedies,
do  I  maintain that the uric acid
diathesis is mended ?
  No, I do not altogether.   What
I do, however, maintain,  is that
after this treatment the attacks of
gout  are  milder  and  much  less 
Gout and its Cure.      65
frequent; but whether this greater
mildness and infrequency be due
to the influence of the  remedies
exclusively, or to the greater subse-
quent care in living, is not easily
determined. Perhaps alittleof both.
  Earlier on in  these pages I said
that gout, for me, is the smoke and
soot of the organism, resulting from
its combustive activities:  this is, 01
course, a figure of speech; my real
meaning  is  practically  identical
with the data of science in regard to
the uric acid diathesis. Only I part
company with scholastic physicians
where they stick fast at the uric acid
deposits  and  their accompanying
super-acid state,—these are, indeed,
my "smoke and soot," but neither
is  the ailment itself.  The gouty
individual is like a smoky chimney: 
66      Gout and its Cure.
his organism does the carrying-off
imperfectly, and as in the case of
the smoky chimney  it does  not
suffice to get the sweeps, but  the
services  of a chimney-doctor  are
needed to remedy the  defect, so in
the gouty person this uric acid may
be got rid of by Gichtwasser, alka-
lies, Piperazifie, or Urtica, but  the
real cure has not been effected;  the
smoke and soot only have been
cleared away, the products are gone,
the power of further production re-
mains ; only the sweep has done his
work not the chimney-doctor; heitis
whose services  have  now to  be
invoked. 
Gout and its Cure.     67
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CURE
  OF   THE  GOUTY   STATE   BY
  MINERAL WATER  AND ALKALIES
  AND BY HOMOEOPATHIC REMEDIES.
  Essentially the cure of the gouty
state by mineral waters and alkalies
is mainly chemical, viz., they set up
a condition of alkalescence, and the
uric concretions are thus rendered
soluble,  and  the  mass  of  fluid
drunk washes them out, while in
the  homoeopathic  treatment   the
organism  itself  becomes  its   own
sweep and turns them out.   In the
former  case the  urine becomes
clear, while under the homoeopathic
action  of the  remedies the urine
becomes  dark and visibly charged
with gravel.  This  difference is 
68      Gout and its Cure.
essentially great  and  important,
for while both end in the washing
out of the deposits, the same begin
forthwith to accumulate almost as
soon as the remedies are left off; on
the other hand, under the homoeo-
pathic remedies the organism  has
itself done the work, and at least
a certain time elapses before  new
deposits take place, so that one has
time to enter upon a real cure of
the diathesic quality.   Only in the
case of large portions of gravel, and
in the case of actual  calculi,  does
the  Piperazine  and   Gichtwasser
treatment seem to me to be prefer-
able, inasmuch as in this latter case
the organism itself cannot possibly
do the work until the concretions
have been disolved.  In  ordinary
manifestations of gout it  is  the 
Gout and its Cure.
69
 organism itself that requires to be
 called up homoeopathically to do its
 own  work;  usually there are  no
 concretions  of  any  great  size
 present, as,  for instance, in  the
 acute attack  of  gout. I have previ-
 ously  stated  that  homoeopathic
 literature, so far as it is known to
 me, has not won any great laurels
 in the matter of gout.   Moreover,
 I  formerly felt the homoeopathic
 treatment of gout to be very tedious
 and unsatisfactory, and now  I will
 proceed to explain why  that has
 heretofore been the case; at least,
 so it seemed  to me.


THE  TRUE HOMCEO-THERAPEUTICS
            OF  GOUT.
  In a  given  case of  gout the 
70      Gout and its Cure.
symptoms  are not  those of  the
individual himself, but of the gouty
matter, of its material presence in
the individual: the pain, the swell-
ing,  the redness,  the tenderness,
the fever, the  restlessness—these
are produced by the gouty material,
which we see from the fact that they
disappear as soon as this material
is washed out; so that what  we
require  are  remedies  that   are
homoeopathic  to  the state  of  the
patient which preceded the gouty
deposit into the tissues, inclusive of
these deposits.  In fact, the pathol-
ogy of gout  must be considered, in
prescribing  adequately,   homoeo-
pathically.  Our anti-arthritic rem-
edies must be capable of producing
a state that leads up to a deposit of
gouty material, and not be merely 
Gout and its Cure.     71
homoeopathic  to  the  symptoms
produced by  the  material itself
The  process,  together  with  the
product, must be within the patho-
genesis, or else a real totality of the
symptoms is not obtained.  In fine,
the gouty material is the stop-spot
of the action of the remedies  thus
far mostly employed in the homoeo-
pathic treatment of gout.   I have
been  severely taken to task  for
claiming  that pathology must be
considered in  a homoeopathic  pre-
scription  in order to ascertain  the
stop-spot  of the  action  of each
remedy, but I beg these esteemed
colleagues to  note that I did  not
say morbid anatomy, but pathology,
two widely different things.  Morbid
anatomy we study in the deadhouse;
that  may or may  not  have to be 
72      Gout and its Cure.

considered as  throwing some light
on a given subject, but pathology is
the doctrine of the disease in  the
living,—the actual pathic biology of
the diseased individual, which ends
where the morbid anatomy begins.
Do my esteemed colleagues really
mean that this pathic  biology of
the patient enters  not  into  the
homoeopathic  equation ?
  I trow not.


ATTACK OF GOUT CURED BY Urtica
              urens.
  Lord X.  had an attack of gout
three years ago, and it fell to my lot
to treat him for it. It was the classic
podagra.  I gave Urtica urens #,
five drops in  a  wineglassful of
warm water, every three hours, and 
Gout and its Cure.      jt,
his lordship was about as usual in
ten days.   In another attack since
then the same remedy acted  with
equal  promptitude,  and  to  the
patient's great   satisfaction.   His
lordship has had quite a number of
attacks of gout,  and has had the
advantage  of  the services of the
very greatest authorities on  gout
in London,  and, moreover, he has
been to the leading spas for gout,
and hence  his opinion is of value,
and this runs thus—" I have never
taken any remedy that has done so
much for me as Urtica; there is no
doubt about that."

       GOUTY OPHTHALMIA.
  A very gouty city gentleman Just
turned  50  years of age, came on
21st  October, 1892, to consult me 
74      Gout and its Cure.
for  a slight attack of gouty  oph-
thalmia of his left eye.  I ordered
Urtica urens Q ten drops in water,
night and morning, and this cured
the  ophthalmia within  a week,
amelioration setting in already with-
in twenty-four hours.  I have been
in the habit of seeing this gentleman
for  a number of years for gouty
manifestations, amongst which was
a very obstinate gouty eczema.
  Dr.  Holtz* maintains  that the
fever of gout, as observed by him
in hundreds of cases, rarely exceeds
about half a degree,  whereas the
fever of rheumatism commonly runs
high, and  this  he regards as  an
essential  difference  between  the
two processes.   This is, no doubt,
  *Das Wesen und die hygienische Behand-
lung der Gicht. Detmold, 1894. 
Gout and its Cure.
correct; still there is some fever, and
at times there are distinct rigors.
There is often, as Tanner points out,
uneasiness in the left rib region, with
inability to lie on that side, so that,
with this symptom added, I think
I may fairly claim that Urtica is a
true simile to gout.
  It has—
  i.  Fever, heat and cold, flushes.
  2.  Passage  of  grit and gravel.
  3.  Uneasiness of left rib region.
  4.  Great restlessness.
  We  will now go on to  the next
point in  the treatment  of  gout.
That much of the gout  we meet
with is more or less produced by
alcohol,  is amply   manifest.  It
becomes,therefore, a question worth
considering whether  the effects of
alcohol per se can be  homoeopathi- 
76      Gout and its Cure.
cally antidoted, and if so, by what
remedies.

ON  A REMEDY HOMOEOPATHICALLY
  ANTIDOTAL TO THE EFFECTS OF
  ALCOHOL-
  For some years past I have been
acquainted with a  renied}^  that
antidotes the effects of alcohol very
prettily,  as I will now proceed to
show.  I enter upon the subject in
this place,  because it deserves to be
made widely known, and also be-
cause,  in  the treatment of gout,
the alcoholism  not  infrequently
bars the  way.  The remedy I refer
to is the  distilled spirit of acorns—
Spiritus  glandium  quercus.   My
first account of it will be found in
my  "Diseases  of  the  Spleen," 
Gout and its Cure.
 where   this  Spiritus  glandium
 quercus is  dealt with  as a  spleen
 medicine. I speak of set purpose of
 the homoeopathic antidote, because
 alcoholism is a disease, and as such
 must be met by specific medication.
   Some of Rademacher's patients
 complained to him that while taking
 his acorn medicine they felt in their
 heads somewhat as if they were
 drunk; but as Rademacher did not
 believe  in  the law  of similars—
 indeed,  knew but little about it—
 their complaint  had  no ulterior
 significance  to  him, but still  it
 struck him as worthy of record;
 and he accordingly did record it in
 the following words (see  Erfah-
 rung sheillehre, p.209,i.):—"Einige,
aber wenige Menschen, bemerken
gleich nach  dem Einnehmen ein
      F 
78      Gout and its Cure.
eigenes,  kaum  eine  oder  zwei
Minuten anhaltendes  Gefuhl  im
Kopfe,   welches  angeblich  der
Berauschung  aehlich  sein soil."
Turned into English:—"A few,
but not many, of those who take it,
immediately feel a peculiar sensa-
tion in the head, which they say is
like they feel when they are drunk,
the sensation lasting only a minute
or two."   Now, in the light of the
homoeopathic law this symptom is
eminently suggestive, but whether
anyone besides  myself  has ever
noticed this symptom  I am not
aware.   But  it made  a  lasting
impression on my mind years ago.
  Rademacher had previously re-
lated  the following brilliant cure.
.   .   .  He says that in order to
get a  clear idea of the action of the 
Gout and its Cure.
remedy, he caused to be prepared a
tincture of acorns, of which he gave
a teaspoonful in water five times a
day to an almost moribund brandy
toper, who had long been suffering
from a spleen affection, that at times
had caused him a good deal of pain,
and  who, at the time in question,
had severe ascites, and whose lower
extremities were dropsical up as far
as the  knees.  Our author was of
opinion that the  affection was  a
primary disease  of the spleen, and
reasoned that if the tincture of acorns
cured the spleen, the kidneys would
duly resume work, and the ascitic
and  anasarcous state would  dis-
appear. He soon found he was right;
patient at once began to pass more
urine, but he complained that every
time he took a dose of the medicine 
80      Gout and its Cure.
he got a  constriction of the chest,
and this Rademacher ascribed to the
astringent quality of the acorns, and
to avoid this he had the tincture of
acorns distilled.  The  administra-
tion of this distilled preparation was
not  followed  by any  unpleasant
symptom, the quantity  of urine
passed increased still  more,  the
tension  in  the praecordia  slowly
lessened, and this inveterate drunk-
ard  got  quite  well, much to the
amazement  of everybody,  Rade-
macher included, for he did not at
all expect him to recover.

  Now, it must  be  admitted that
a remedy that  can cure  an old
drunkard of  general  dropsy  and
restore  him  to  health  deserves
closer acquaintance. And when we 
Gout and its Cure.     81
regard it first from the pathogenetic
side as  producing, of course, con-
tingently, a cephalic  state resem-
bling  alcoholic intoxication, and
then from the clinical side as having
cured an abandoned drunkard, it
looks very  much  as if we had a
remedy homoeopathic to alcoholism.
I may  add that Rademacher no-
where  hints  that  the  Spiritus
glandium quercus stands in  any
relation to alcoholism; he regards
it  merely  as  a spleen medicine,
specially indicated in dropsy due
to a primary spleen affection.  At
first, I regarded it merely in the
same  light;  but  when  I  really
gripped  the significance  of the
pathogentic symptoms just quoted,
I thought we might find in our
common acorns a notable homoeo-
pathic anti-alcohlic. 
82      Gout and its Cure.
  Now  let me give  some  of my
clinical experience on this point, so
that my readers  may  be able to
judge for themselves whether this
be so.

THE  Spiritus  glandium  quercus
  HOMCEPATHICALLY  ANTIDOTAL
  TO THE ILL EFFECTS  OF ALCO-
  HOL.
         I. OBSERVATION.
  Colonel X., aged 64, came under
my observation on January 15,1889,
broken down with gout and chronic
alcoholism, and pretty severe bron-
chitis.   Heart's action  irregular;
liver and spleen both elarged; and
he complained bitterly of a gnaw-
ing in the pit of the stomach. His
gait was unsteady and tottering, his
hands quivered, and altogether he 
Gout and its Cure.     83
was in  a  sorry plight.  The poor
fellow had lost his wife, and had for
a good while  tried to rub  along
with  the aid  of a  little  Dutch
courage,  in  the shape of nips  of
spirits, for which he  was always
craving. Severe windy spasms ; no
sugar, no albumen.
  R Spiritus glandium  quercus 0,
10 drops in water, three times a day.
  January 22.—On  this  day—a
week from his first visit—he walked
briskly into my  consulting room,
and brightly exclaimed, " Well, I
think you have worked a miracle;"
and the curious thing was that his
craving for spirits was notably less,
he having consumed only one-third
of a bottle of whisky in the week,
instead of two  bottles, which was
his  usual  allowance.   The windy 
84      Gout and its Cure.
spasms had ceased, and his  foul
breath  had  become  sweet;  and
finally, his spleen had gone down
in size very notably.  To leave off
the Quercus.
  February 5.—So little craving
for whisky that he offers to leave
it off;  much less phlegm in chest;
no spasms;  altogether quite a dif-
ferent man,  but is  depressed.
  R Spiritus glandium  quercus  0,
7 drops in water, three times  a
day.
  February  19.— He  is  chirpy
again,  and  has  no  craving for
whisky.
  The  remedy  was  repeated in
May, and I learned some months
afterwards, from his daughter,  that
the colonel continued in fair health,
and partook of stimulants  "like 
Gout and its Cure.     85
other people,"  and without  any
"craving."

        II. OBSERVATION.
  A London merchant,  57 years
of age,  came under  my care on
October  16, 1888, for necrosis  of
all the nails of his right hand, and
most of those of the left hand, and
of nearly all his toe-nails;  severe
arcus senilis, rushes of blood to the
head, buzzing in both ears.  I dis-
charged him cured at the end of the
summer  of 1891,  so  that he  was
under my very  careful treatment
for nearly three  years.  He was a
candid, dutiful patient, and had his
reward in being really and radically
cured.  He first had Vanadium 5, 5
drops in water, night and morning,
and  after  one month of this his 
86      Gout and its Cure.
arcus senilis had notably  dimin-
ished, and "I do not get so  tired,
and my hands do  not tremble so
much."  The Vanadium was con-
tinued for a second month.  " Much
better  in  himself; can  now do a
day's work; trembling  all gone;
noises nearly well of the  left ear,
no better of the right." Thuja and
many  remedies   followed,  with
steady amelioration, but something
seemed to bar the way to a perfect
cure, when  he confessed that he
thought he took too much sherry
in nips.   Like the colonel, he was
never intoxicated—never, in  fact,
morally intoxicated, but still never
free from the effects of his nips.
  R Spiritus glandium  quercus®, 10
drops in water, night and morning.
  This brought out a good deal of 
Gout and its Cure.      87
gouty  eczema  of scalp, poll, and
backs  of hands.  It took me ten
months to really cure this eczema,
and then I  had him back to the
Quercus, which he took, altogether,
for three months ; and then I find,
at the end of my record of his case,
in my case-book the word
well

        III. OBSERVATION.
   The wife of an officer of position
wrote to me some two years ago—
"... I am not at all satisfied with
my husband's  appearance.   We
have had a shooting party, and  I
am sure he drinks too much.   I
can always tell by the look of his
eyes;  they are so  yellow,  and
puffy  underneath.   I  wish  you
would send him something to put 
88      Gout and its Cure.
him right; he says he is all right,
but I am sure  he is not, from  his
breath."
  After  a month  of  Quercus, I
heard this : " .  .   .  My husband
looks wonderfully well."

        IV. OBSERVATION.
  A noble Nimrod, about 40 years
of age, a very free liver, and plagued
with attacks of gout,  came under
my observation in the spring of
1891 for varicose veins of the lower
extremities, starting originally, it
seemed  to me, from  an enlarged
spleen,  which was seemingly  left
after typhoid fever.  Knowing  his
mode of life, and on account of the
spleen,  I  gave him Quercus for a
month,  10 drops at bedtime,  and
then noted: "He likes his medicine, 
Gout and its Cure.     89
as it keeps his bowels very regular."
   May 15,  1891.—Veins better;
fewer rings under his eyes.
   R Petroleum 5.
  July 22.—"He feels his feet hot,
and  would like the first  medicine
[Quercus), as it seemed  to  make
him feel so well.
   R Spiritus glandium quercus 0,
10 drops in water, at bedtime.
   September 8.—In rude health.

        V. OBSERVATION.
   The following case is very strik-
ing,  and greatly impressed  me :—
   A country squire, from the shire
of Moon rakers, bachelor, 60 years
of age, was accompanied to  me on
October  3,  1893, by his brother,
resident in London.   This gentle-
man was  so very ill that his  case 
90      Gout and its Cure.
was  regarded as  quite  hopeless.
He was not capable of stating his
own  case, and hence his brother did
it for him. Patient was flushed, and
in much pain over the eyes and in
both rib regions.  Stooping caused
very great pain,  worse in the left
hypochondrium.  Both  liver and
spleen notably enlarged.  He is ex-
ceedingly nervous, very depressed,
glum, taciturn, and moved to tears
by almost anything.  He could not
walk without support, on account of
his  great giddiness.  His  breath
was  in the highest degree disgust-
ingly stercoraceous  (merdeux), so
much so that I very nearly vomited
when examining  him.   He was
personally unknown to me, and I
had  no  history of him, but that
smell of breath is an unmistakable 
Gout and its Cure.      91
sign of the chronic tippler.   I sub-
sequently  ascertained that he was
quite a sober-living man, but took
frequent nips,  particularly when
confined  to  the  house by  wet
weather. But quite apart from this,
the Quercus was manifestly homoeo-
pathic to the case.
   1. Pain in the left  side.
   2. Giddiness.
   3. Flushed state.
So I  ordered  Spiritus  glandium
quercus 0, 10 drops in water, three
times a day.
   October  10.—Less  fluttering;
giddiness a little better; the tender-
ness of the  rib region  much  di-
minished ;  breath normal!
   He returned home in  six  weeks
perfectly well.   A prettier  direct-
art cure I think I have never" seen. 
92      Gout and its Cure.
        VI.  OBSERVATION.
  Three months ago a city mag-
nate,  about 70 years of age, came
to  me  for  giddiness,   flatulent
dyspepsia,  depression of spirits, a
flushed face, and "altogether below
par."   His  conjunctivae  were yel-
lowish,  his tongue foul,  and  his
breath the  same  as  in  the last-
narrated case—stercoraceous and
nauseous.  Under the Quercus the
patient made a rapid recovery, his
breath becoming sweet within four
days.   This stercoraceous smell is
pathognomonic of undigested  al-
cohol in the primes vi<^,and is readily
perceived two yards away from the
patient's mouth, and quite unbear-
able within a foot or two.  Where
this smell  is present,  there  is no
need to make irritating inquiries as 
Gout and its Cure.      93
to the imbibitionary habits of the
individual,—Quercus is  indicated.
It does not, of course, follow that
the Quercus is indicated only in the
alcoholic  state.   I have  used it in
the cases  of total abstainers where
giddiness and spleen trouble co-
exist.  I name this lest I prejudice
the  legitimate  use  of  Quercus,
and  motive it by narrating  the
following little episode :—
   Years  ago  I was attending the
wife of  a certain bishop,  Lady
Sarah  X.  She had incipient malig-
nant disease  of  the tongue, and
while inspecting the part I  recalled
to my mind  the experience  of
Baron  Storck and the state of his
tongue, and  that of his famulus.
At the time I knew next to nothing
of homoeopathic literature, and in
       G 
94      Gout and its Cure.
my  naivety I prescribed  Conium
for Lady Sarah.   On my next visit
I found her ladyship in a fearful
tantrum,  and,  on inquiring,  she
screeched  at  me—" I  have  not
taken  your medicine, not a single
drop of it."
  "Why not?"
  " Why not, indeed? It is Coniu?u,
and you prescribed it because I am
and old woman ! "
  In vain I protested.*

DOES the action of the Spiritus
  glandium  quercus  EXTEND TO
  THE LIQUOR HABIT?
  I think I  must  answer this very
largely, though not entirely,  in the
  *To the uninitiated I may explain  that in
the homoeopathic '' little books " it is stated
tinder Conium that it is good for the complaints
of old women. 
Gout and its Cure.      95
negative.  Its action antidotes the
alcoholic state promptly and effect-
ively,  and the craving is  at times
greatly lessened, and in here and
there a case cured altogether; but
speaking broadly, it stops short of
the liquor habit.  Just as  Urtica
urens will not cure the  gouty dis-
position, except in a small degree,
only helping the organism to cast
out the gouty product itself, and so
leaving  it  strengthened,  so the
Glandes  quercus will not cure the
liquor habit beyond a very limited
degree.   But  inasmuch  as the
Urtica gets  rid of the uric acid
through  and by the organism, so it
is a homoeopathic remedy, and not
either  chemical, mechanical,  or
allopathic.  And this is seen from
the fact that an attack of gout got 
96      Gout and its Cure.
rid of by the aid of Urtica does not
return so readily as when got rid
of chemically through the artificial
productions of alkalescence of the
juices.   That the action of Urtica
is vital may be further seen from
the fact that it by and by loses its
action as the  individual ceases to
react to  its stimulus, whereas  the
chemical cure can be  repeated al-
most at will in the same individual.
And reverting now for a moment to
the influence of the Glandes quercus
in the liquor habit: although it does
not touch this where  the habit is
autochthonous, still where the habit
is a liking for drink produced by
drink purely and simply, and thus
not  autochthonous,  but  foreign,
I have  found that  it does reach
even the liquor habit itself.  Thus 
Gout and its Cure.     97
in the case of the colonel which I
have narrated, the Spiritus glan-
dium quercus did cure the liquor
habit.   And how  so?  Surely it
might be said, your distilled spirit
of acorns either does, or does not,
cure the liquor habit.  It is in this
wise: the colonel had no initially
autochthonous  liquor habit;  his
wife died, and he began to nip  out
of loneliness ; when  the action of
one nip was on  the wane a new7 nip
followed, and so on in a circle. With
the lapse of time that lonesomeness
became less ; time had caused  the
wound to heal up, or, at any rate,
to skin over, but the drink-begotten
habit of drinking remained. The
acorn spirit  cured the effect of  the
drinking, i.  e., the acquired liquor
habit;  to this it  is homoeopathic, 
98      Gout and its Cure.
but it is  not  homoeopathic  to  the
liquor  habit  when  due to  other
causes (such as when a symptom of
consumptiveness, as it often is) ,and
will therefore not reach the habit,
but only the effects of the habit
around the  alcohol.  It is very
necessary to iterate and reiterate
this point, viz., what I have else-
where  termed   the  stop-spot   of
homoeopathic influence (see the pre-
liminary chapter in my Curability
of Tumors by  Medicine).   I per-
ceive our critics have not touched
upon  this, but  here and there a
thinker has gripped the idea. It is
difficult,  somewhat  abstruse, and
takes  a little  time to filter through
the mind and come out clear. I do
not, as some aver, think little of
symptoms  or of symtomatology. 
Gout and its Cure.
99
 What I say is this:  We must not
 only take the symptoms and cover
 them; we must also take the whole
 pathology, both of the disease and
 of  the drug, and juxtapose the
 two processes,  and   then get in
 behind the  symptoms   and see
 whether in addition to the sympto-
 matic  similarity  there  is   also
 coincidence of the drug pathology
 with  the  disease  pathology, both
 running from start to goal.   The
 reason why Urtica cannot cure the
 gout disease, but can only cure the
 gouty attack, is  because its patho-
 logy goes only up to  the product,
 and stops short of the production.
  In regard  to the question  as to
 whether and how  far the Spiritus
glandium quercus reaches the crav-
 ing for drink, the  following  letter 
ioo     Gout and its Cure.
from  the  wife  of a gentleman to
whom I had sent the remedy, is of
a certain interest:—

  "Dear Dr. Burnett,—To begin
with  my  husband.  He took the
drops for a week, and  then, as he
caught a chill and was very poorly,
and in the doctor's hands, I stopped
the drops  until he was a little  bet-
ter.   He has  now  finished them
about three weeks.  He says his feet
are not half so tender, and he can
walk with more ease and  comfort.
He has not been feeling very well,
rather limp, and tired easily.  He
has, however, slept well and quietly,
and while he was taking the drops
he drank less, both with and before
his meals.  The last week or so he
is again taking sherry before meals 
Gout and its Cure.     101
 and beer  at meal  time, so I  fully
 expect a bilious attack, especially
 as he is not as sweet-tempered as
 usual.  He has been eating better,
 and has  come to bed  earlier.  He
 has had B.  and S. in the morning
 before breakfast.  So please  do
 give him  something  to  stop this
 craving for pick-me-ups.   Air and
 exercise he has in plenty, so if only
 his  craving,  sinking  feelings for
 something can be stopped, he would
 be as well as possible.  I think his
 hands look less swollen; they were
 decidedly swollen a little while ago.
 He looks a little yellow in the eyes,
 and  the  skin  a  little  dry and
 wrinkled.   We all notice that he
 drinks less than he used to, and are
 all thankful for that;  so  in time,
perhaps, he will be quite right." 
io2     Gout and its Cure.
THE COD-LIVER OIL CURE FOR GOUT.

  In the early part of this century,
cod-liver oil was, in many parts of
Europe, the most common cure for
gout amongst the people, so it is
highly probable that  it has  some
therapeutic virtue in painful affec-
tions of the extremities. And since
then it has been revived by the
Faculty, and has again gone out of
fashion.   I know of no indications
for its use, and though I have never
ordered its use in gout, I  have
occasionally consented to its being
used.

THE HOT-WATER CURE OF CADET
            DE VAUX.
  The cure of gout  by drinking
quantities of hot water was much 
Gout and its Cure.     103
in vogue in the early part of this
century, and it has been  revived
again  within the  past  few years,
and at the present time is again
much  in  vogue.  It went out  of
fashion long ago, because of its real
or supposed ill-effects upon the con-
stitution.  So far as my own experi-
ence goes, the hot-water treatment
is indicated  in the aged,  and  in
those whose tissues are tough, dry,
and cold. In the young and middle-
aged,  in  the tender and  in the
sappy, the  hot-water treatment  is
distinctly harmful. It attacks and
hurts the tender tissues, and may
not be used  by the young at all.
The  middle-aged  may   use  it
occasionally, when there is much
acid in the intestines, and digestion
is at a standstill.   At the present 
104     Gout and its Cure.

time, the Salisbury  treatment—
living on hot  water  and  finely
minced  meat—is quite the rage,
notably  since a  noble duke  has
stood godfather to it.   So  far as I
have been able to judge, it is only
a  disagreeable way of starving.
A lady  tried  it  for some time—
I  think  seven weeks—and from
being a comely person, only some-
what stout, yet in full  vigour, she
lost most of her flesh and all  her
strength, and the uterine  tumour,
for which the treatment was under-
taken,  alone  throve, and waxed
greater; the patient herself became
so weak that she frequently fainted.
She  was unable to stand from
weakness,  and  would certainly
have died  had it not been given
up.  The case was observed  by 
Gout and its Cure.     105
 myself, and is not heresay.  I know
 a gentleman, about 50 years of age,
 who has been doing the  Salisbury
 treatment for some  months  past;
 he is naturally thin and wiry, and
 he is very enthusiastic  about the
 cure, although  he confesses  that
 he is very weak, and can only just
 drag himself slowly  about.  He
 adopted the treatment  for oxaluria
 and  great depression of spirits, and
 maintains that he now passes no
 oxalates, and is  light-hearted, and
 feels wonderfully well, so far as his
 feelings go, notwithstanding the
 bodily debility.   "The  Salisbury
 treatment," said  he to me the other
 day, " is a grand thing to get rid of
 all superfluous tissue." Of course;
 no one questions  that we  all can
get rid of our tissues by starvation. 
106     Gout and its Cure.
The art is to keep plenty of good
tissues, and  therewith  remain in
good health and vigour.  I have
tried many  dietetic  experiments
on  myself,  and  thus have  often
lessened and increased my bulk
almost  at will, and what I have
invariably found is this: you cannot
make a foxfire with a.small quantity
of fuel; that is impossible. Consume,
as a general thing, very little, and
you can 011I3' spend a very little in
energy; you cannot get much out
of little.  Of course,  you may get
too bulky, and thus  waste much
energy in mere locomotion. That is
a question of being overweighted;
and when some of this overweight
is got rid  of 03' diet, there  is, ap-
parently,  more energy  developed
on  less  food,  but this  is  only
« 
Gout and its Cure.     107
apparent and not  real.  For here
we have two factors to consider:—
First, the overweight  is lessened,
and less energy is required for loco-
motion; and, secondly, the  over-
weight that is got rid of must be
added to the food taken, inasmuch
as the dieted individual has himself
consumed a portion of himself: his
organism has used up some of its
stored fat.  But if the diminished
import  of  food be continued  too
long, deterioration  and   debility
must ensue.  This is where  the
fallacy comes in: stored food is used,
and so the quantity of fuel is  not
less, whereas the bulk to be carried
is less, and so the initial state of the
spare diet process is very commonly
accompanied by a feeling  of well-
being and lightness;  they feel so 
io8     Gout and its Cure.
much  lighter, and get  about so
much more easily.  Of course they
do.  But as soon as the  stored-up
food is gone, weakness supervenes
if a too spare diet be persisted in.
Therefore, in all dieting  we must
stop a little before the fatty reserve
store is all used up; for if  we go
on  we  just  consume  ourselves,
and as far as this goes  it is  death.
This brings us along to the question
of diet in  gout and diet for the fat.
Fat people  are  not  necessarily
gouty, and gouty  people are  not
necessarily  fat;  still  gout  and
obesity touch one another so closely
that they  in a  certain number of
cases, are  not easily separated in
practice.
  Let  us   consider, first, food  and
zuork, and then height and weight. 
Gout and its Cure.     109
        FOOD AND WORK.
  In  considering the  qustion  of
diet we rarely find people take due
cognizance of the mode of life  of
the individual who is to be fed, and
yet in  the  case of  horses,  for
instance, every horse-keeper feeds
his  horses  according  to what he
expects them to do.  I formerly,
very frequently, went to a country
house, four miles from the railway
station, to see a  patient suffering
from  a  grave malady.   For some
weeks the ordinary carriage horses
were sent to take me to the patient's
abode, and so long as this was the
case the hills offered no impediment,
and  I found  myself  transported
rapidly; and this was very  satis-
factory to me, for a doctor's time is
      H 
no     Gout and its Cure.
his capital.  Patient's malady was,
as before stated, a  grave one, and
his belongings were very anxious
to get me to the house  as quickly
as  possible,  so good-conditioned
horses were put into the carriage.
But after a while patient got better,
and then I found that a fat old pony
was sent to the  station to meet me,
and it took  us nearly  an hour  to
reach  the squire's mansion. On
the way  back  to  the  station  I
inquired of the coachman how it
was that "Shaggy"  seemed  so
pumped out  with' such a  short
journey. Said he:  " Well, you see,
Sir, she is out at  grass in the home-
park,  and gets no oats or dry food
at all."
  Now, the coachman's explanation
of "Shaggy's " weakness gives  us 
Gout and its Cure.      in
the clue to what I desire to say  in
regard to diet  in general.  When
anyone asks—What am I  to  eat
and drink? the answer must duly
reckon with the mode of life of the
questioner, and the amount of work
which is required  of him.  As  a
rule, no work whatever was required
of " Shaggj7:"  she just ran about in
the home-park, thriving beautifully
on grass and water, and on this diet
she seemed exceedingly happy and
plump and sleek, and when spoken
to would gallop away in fine style,
the picture of health, strength, and
happiness.  Yet a  three or four
miles' run, in a very light cart, was
a severe trial for " Shaggy."  It is
not different with human beings ; if
they do nothing but j ust loll about-
turned out to grass, so  to speak— 
ii2     Gout and its Cure.
bread  and water, with fruit  and
vegetables, amply  suffice;  but if
they work, they need the equivalent
of oats and dry food. I am here not
giving expression to mere theory,
for I have tried  numerous experi-
ments on  my  own  person  and
proved  the point  over and over
again ; and I  emphatically affirm
that you cannot get much work out
of little food, any more than  you
can  make  a very big fire with a
very  little  fuel.   Whether  the
authority   be  Salisbury,   Canter-
bury, or York,  I  care  not;  you
cannot get much  work  out  of a
spare diet.
  And now as to
      HEIGHT  AND  WEIGHT.
  I go a little  out of my  way to
point out the common fallacy under- 
Gout and its Cure.     113
lying almost all the data given as to
what the normal weight of a person
of a given height should be. If my
reader will consult the tables, he
will find that the assumed basis is
faulty in a very important particu-
lar. Let me explain. Place a dozen
persons of a given height—say 5 ft.
9 in.—side by side in a  row, and
as they are all of the same height,
the tops of their heads will be in a
line, but their hips will be at very
different heights. In fact, it will be
seen that the height of an individual
is no  sure guide to  his bulk, and
therefore not  to  his  weight.  In
some a long neck makes an inch or
more  difference, in others it is a
very long thigh bone that gives the
greater height;  but in both  cases
the weight is not determined by the 
ii4
Gout and its Cure.
length of the neck or of the legs,
but rather by the relative length of
the trunk.
  There are many big people who
stand at 5 ft. 6 in., and there are a
good many small people who stand
about 6 feet high.
  There is a saying amongst the
people that little  women make the
best mothers;  but these so-called
little women are really big women,
only they are on short legs.  When
examined very closely I find they
are large in the trunk and have fine
pelves, while big women (so-called)
are really smaller in the capacity of
their trunks and pelves, and hence
less adapted  for the  duties of
motherhood.
  The neck carries the head, the
legs carry the trunk, and certainly 
Gout and its Cure.     115
heavy heads and heavy trunks are
more safely carried on supports not
too  long  in  the perpendicular.
This being so, all the  data  given
in  our tables  of how  much you
ought to weigh if you are of a given
height require to be revised;  for
any one whose attention has been
called to the subject can readily see
that there are many little people
who are tall, and very many  big
people who are short.   There are,
of course, a few people—very few,
really—who are both big and tall.
As a rule, very tall people are not of
great constitutional power, though
some tall thin people are very tough
and wiry, and exceedingly vital.
  What  have  height and weight
and their relative merits to do with
gout ?   Just  this:   every  little 
n6     Gout and its Cure.
medico thinks he knows  all about
the diet suitable for this ailment
and  that, and is so very sure that
a person of a given  height should
only weigh so much, and that a big
gouty individual may be safely and
profitably starved till his height and
weight proportion tallies  with  the
table  published in his  text-books,
but which tables are based entirely
on false data.
  In fine, in j udging of the diet suit-
able to a person,  keep in  view  the
amount of work he has to do; and
before  you  determine the  proper
weight of an individual, do  not
merely  consider  his height from
crown  to  sole,  but rather have
greater regard to the diameters of
his trunk.
  What first led me, twenty odd 
Gout and its Cure.     117
 years ago, to think more closely of
 what should be  the  criterion of a
 person's weight, was the fact that
 a friend of mine, commonly called
 little, i.e. short, sat at table higher
 than another friend who was usually
 considered  a big,  i.e.  tall, man.
 And from many observations, I have
 long since come  to the conclusion
 that the big may be short and  the
 tall  small.   Also that the  power
 of an individual  is  in  proportion,
 not merely to his height, but to all
 his measurements, and these must
 be  carefully  considered  before a
 true conclusion can be arrived at.

 HOHENHEIM  ON  THE NATURE  OF
              GOUT.
  Paracelsus' conception of the true
nature of gout wtrue to Nature, and 
n8
Gout and its Cure.
tallies exactly with my  own.  He
says  {Tract, iv., De origine  morb.
ex tartaro; and in Erfahrungsheil-
lehre, p. 95):—" Each organ has the
power to separate the hurtful from
the  harmless, and when in this
faculty it goes astray, there we get
tartarus;" and thus, for Paracelsus,
tartarus  is that  which  ought  to
have  been  excreted, but is not,
and remains in the body  as hurtful
material, producing mechanical irri-
tation. Thus stone in the kidneys,
bladder,  liver, lungs,  intestines,
under  the tongue,  or  in  other
regions, is tartarus, and also acidity
in the stomach and bowels.   Now,
put the word gout in the place of
tartarus, and we clearly see that
Paracelsus knew as much of  the
true nature of gout as we of to-day 
Gout and its Cure.     119
 who talk of the uric acid diathesis
 and the  like.   Moreover, he knew
 how to dissolve stone in the living
 body, at which the scholastic wise-
 acres have been laughing all  my
 life, and yet they now howl at those
 who question  the  power  of  the
 much advertised Piperazine to do
 the same.

 RADEMACHER'S  TREATMENT  OF
              GOUT.
  Our author claims that gout may
 be caused by a primary disease of
 any given organ or part, or of  the
 entire organism, and maintains that
 in the former  case it is curable by
 the appropriate organ remedy, while
 in the latter case  it is curable by
one of the three Paracelsic universal
or catholic remedies, i.e. nitre, iron, 
120     Gout and its Cure.

or copper.   So that in this latter
case gout may be of nitric, cupric, or
ferric quality.


CASE  OF GOUTY GASTRALGIA  OF
  THIRTEEN  YEARS'   DURATION
  cured by Urtica  urens.
  Not long since a gentleman of
60 years of age, who had lived many
years in a sub-tropical country, came
under my observation for gastralgia
extending  right up through the
chest.   Although he had lived in
parts where ague is very common,
he  is not aware that he has ever
had ague himself.  He has many
gouty  deposits all  over his body,
mostly in the neighborhood of the
joints. His throat is gouty, and also
his left conjunctiva.   There  is a 
Gout and its Cure.     121
good deal  of bronchial  catarrh,
The gastralgia yielded quickly and
completely  to Urtica urens,  much
to the amazement of the patient,
who has been under fully a score of
physicians in different parts  of the
world for this gastralgia, but  in
vain ; and when I first saw him he
was  j ust back from Aix-les-Bains,
which had also done his gastralgia
no good.

THE TREATMENT  OF THE CONSTI-
  TUTIONAL BASIS OF GOUT: THE
  URIC ACID DIATHESIS.
  The gouty attack being disposed
of, we now come to the real problem,
viz.,  to the cure of  that in a  given
constitution  which  ends  in the
deposit of the urate of sodium  in
the tissues.   The  problem is very 
122     Gout and its Cure.
complex and varied, and it is not
easy to explain to the  uninitiated
that yon constitutional anomaly,
which we  now  call the uric acid
diathesis, may require very different
remedies according to the individual
patient.  And here  it  is  not  a
question of the comparative merits
of homoeopathy and of allopathy, for
allopathy offers us no help, even in
theory, for the diathesis. When it is
merely a question of the morbid
product of the gouty attack, allo-
pathy has a pretty big word to say,
either  with the Gichtwasser or the
alkaline treatment,of whose tempor-
al efficacy there can be no doubt,
just as there can be no doubt that
allopathic remedies  open people's
bowels ; but the alkalies do not cure
the gouty  constitution  any more 
Gout and its Cure.     123
than do opening medicines cure con-
stipation. To cure constipation, we
must have homoeopathy, and so we
must correct the gouty diathesis.
  The only efficacious plan is  to
begin by  making  a  diagnosis
of the constitutional  wrong,  and
curing that.  It may lie in the liver
or spleen, or in the kidneys  or
bowels.*  The hepatics often ren-
der the very greatest aids :  Cheli-
donium,  Chelone, Carduus, Myrica
ceiifera,   Diplotaxis   tenuifolia,
Cholesterinum;   often pancreatics
render eminent  services, such  as
Iris versicolor, Nux vomica,  Pulsa-
tilla,  Mercurius, Iodine, Jaborandi,
and Pilocarpine, used as they may
be called for.
* See Rademacher. 
124     Gout and its Cure.
   Bryonia, too, is often indicated, as
 also Sulphur and Hepar sulphuris.
   We also find, as very frequently
 indicated, the  commoner  splenics,
 such as the  already  many times
 mentioned Urtica urens, the Persi-
 caria urens, the Rubia tinctoria, the
 Spiritus glandium quercus, and the
 like.
   In the renal sphere we may need
 Coccus  cacti,   Coccinella,  Solidago
 znrga aurea, etc.  Going over the
 notes of some of my cases I  find
 that Sulphur, Thuja, Sabina, Pulsa-
 tilla, Bryonia, Rhus  tox., Lyco-
podium, and Antisycotic nosodes are
 most commonly to the fore.
   But,  which of all these?
   In ultimate court of appeal there
 remains the priceless  Repertory to
 lead us to the correct choice of the 
Gout and its Cure.     125
remedy. With me, personally, the
Repertory   has  always been  my
reserve force, to be called out only
in case of need; but, for all that,
I feel and know full well that, with
my Repertory in reserve, I am never
quite beaten.
  The  acids  in  the  treatment of
gout I have used much and often—
of course in repeated  doses—Uric
acid itself (and also Urea, Urate of
Sodium),  Citric acid, Nitric acid,
Hydrochloric acid, and Lactic acid.
  Acids are almost universally con-
demned in  the treatment  of gout;
but, for all that, acids  and  not
alkalies are capable of curing cer-
tain cases of gout, only, of course,
they must  be homoeopathically ad-
ministered, or you merely add fuel
to the flames, and this simple lesson
      1 
126     Gout and its Cure.
is so hard to learn.   Most medical
authors, in treating of  oxaluria,
were  against the  use  of sorrel,
rhubarb, and gooseberries, as con-
taining  Oxalic  acid.  But  these
authors might readily observe that
although the consumption of a dish
of stewed rhubarb is followed by a
notable increase in the  oxalates, a
very notable decrease in the same
immediately follows.

IS FRUIT GOOD OR  BAD FOR THE
             GOUTY ?
  I have myself cured  gout over
and over again with grapes  taken
in bulk; and several of my patients,
who were formerly sorely plagued
with gout, have entirely ceased to
be troubled  so long as  they have
partaken freely of grapes. 
Gout and its Cure.     127
  I may say the same of oranges.
In fact my standing advice  to  my
gouty friends  runs  thus :—Eat
plenty of fresh, ripe, uncooked fruit,
and drinkplenty of fresh cold water.
But this advice needs to be some-
what elaborated, for a violent attack
of gout may be produced by fruit,
particularly wrhere it has been long
eschewed;  and severe gouty head-
aches and bilious attacks may like-
wise be called forth by  partaking
of fresh  fruit.
  How, then, can we commend fruit
to the gouty ?
  It is in this wise: fresh fruits stir
up the gout and  often  render its
manifestations more active;  but,
at the same time, its tendency is to
diminish gout, and, finally,  to  get
rid of it,  in some cases, altogether. 
128     Gout and its Cure.
   A very little fruit, in a very gouty
individual who is unaccustomed to
it, will punish  the patient very
severely, as the numberless stories
related by the gouty amply testify.
   " If I eat one gooseberry only, my
inside is like  a  hot cauldron, and
all my gouty joints  smart  fear-
fully."
   " I ate half an apple, and writhed
in agony half the night."
   And so forth.
   All  this  is  quite true,  and is
indeed  within  my  own   profes-
sional experience, but at the same
time I emphatically state and main-
tain that fruit is  very good  for the
gouty, for the more  fruit they eat ,
the less gout they will (by-and-by)
have.   Only I will recommend the
fruit-eating  to be begun  with cau- 
Gout and its Cure.     129
tion,  and slowly increased till  it
becomes not only a harmless but a
most beneficent anti-gout habit.
  The same remarks apply to gouty
eczema, which I have  often cured;
and I am in the habit of telling my
patients that I do not consider  a
case of gouty eczema wholly and
radically cured  till  they  can eat
fruit freely with  impunity.  How
often do we hear, " Oh, I dare not
touch fruit, or I  immediately get
eczema ?"  Fruit does not produce
gout, it stirs it up and drives it out;
fruit  does not produce eczema,  it
stirs it up and drives it out; and,
pray, where is it safest to have gout
and eczema ?  Surely  not inside.

  DO VEGETABLES  AND  FRUIT
    CONDUCE TO  LONGEVITY ?
  I am much disposed to  answer 
130     Gout and its Cure.
this question in  the affirmative,
though my experience and knowl-
edge  are  not sufficient to supply
me with  facts and  arguments to
prove the proposition.
   Some  years  since  I  knew a
gentleman who regarded all fruits
and vegetables as poison.  He died
of pure senile decay at 60 years
of age.  For many  years he  had
eaten neither fruits nor vegetables,
but plenty of meat.
   A few years previously I knew
a West End physician who likewise
condemned fruits  and  vegetables
as  rubbish.   He  died  suddenly
about 60 years of age.
  And altogether I have long been
of opinion, from observation, that
those who partake of no vegetables
or fruit do not, as a rule, attain to 
Gout and its Cure.     131
 any great age.  Oddly enough, I
 was arguing this question only a
 few weeks ago with a gentleman of
 62  years of age, who had remarked
 to me that he never ate either fruit
 or vegetables. Two days  thereafter
 he  suddenly expired in a hansom
 cab while driving  across London.
 His tissues  were in a sad state  of
 senile decay.
  That the tissues of those who eat
 neither fruit  nor vegetables show
 grave signs of senility already  at
 or about middle life is,for me,almost
 beyond question ; but whether the
 want of  the vegetable causes the
 decay, or whether the decay is due
 to a morbid cause resulting in  a
 dislike for fruits and vegetables, as
well as in senility, I am unable to
 say. 
132
Gout and its Cure.
          IDIOSYNCRASY.
   In all questions of diet  certain
personal  peculiarities  are  to  be
respectfully regarded.  We do not
know  everything.  I have lately
been told of a gentleman who gets
severe  glossitis  from  even   a
spoonful of oaten porridge ; certain
people cannot eat  mussels, apples,
strawberries,  pork,   and  so on.
Those idiosyncrasies must be  re-
garded.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF GONORRHOEA
   ON THE  PRODUCTION  OF  THE
   GOUTY DIATHESIS.
   The question of the influence of
gonorrhoea  upon  the constitution
has  often  occupied  the minds  of 
Gout and its Cure.     i
thoughtful  physicians.   At  the
beginning of this century the Trip-
perseuche, in the German medical
thought world,  was fairly in the
enjoyment of medical citizenship,
and it really constitutes the third
member in the tripartite pathology
of Hahnemann—viz., his sycosis;
and Grauvogl's Hydrogenoid Con-
stitution is another way of putting
the same thing.   With the advent
of the era of Ricord  in venereal
affections, the  Tripperseuche  was
entirely  banished,  covered  with
ridicule.  However,  it survived in
the homoeopathic school more or
less waningly till a few years ago,
when it came  very near  death,
except with  a  certain few of the
Hahnemannians. Then all at once,
not so long ago, the Tripperseuche 
134     Gout and its Cure.
was rediscovered by a New York
German  physician, who took  it
back with him on his return to the
German fatherland, whence it has
spread afresh in thin lines the world
over;  and in France the view  that
gonorrhoea is a grave constitutional
disorder is at the present time fash-
ionable.  The fact is, Eisenmann's
Tripperseuche will be quite orthodox
again shortly if the  present-day
rediscoveries go on much longer.
I  have  held  with  Eisenmann,
Hahnemann,   Grauvogl,   Wolf,
Goullon, these twenty years,  and
I will just say  here that I believe
the malady in question has a very
decided  influence   on  the organ-
ism, being contingently capable of
generating  a constitutional  state
which cannot be distinguished from 
Gout and its Cure.     135
the uric acid  diathesis.   My con-
ception of the thing is  that the
gonococcic  virus  so poisons  the
organism that acid dypepsia is set
up, and then we have what cannot
be  distinguished  from  the  uric
acid diathesis.  So often  have  I
seen this state set up in the wake
of the gonorrhceal infection, that I
have almost come to the conclusion
that the  typical gouty attack is  a
child   of  gonorrhoea.   Thus   I
explain to myself  the curious fact
that it is principally  men who get
the typical gouty  attack.   And it
is in this line of thought that I have
met with my greatest success in
the medicinal  eradication  of  the
uric acid diathesis.   But  this is  a
subject by itself which I may one
day work out; however,   in  case 
136     Gout and its Cure.
I  should  not   do  so,  let   my
advice to the initiated be to this
effect: — Regard  the  uric  acid
diathesis as originating (at least very
frequently) in the  Tripperseuche,
and in its medicinal treatment stick
to the antisycotics, and always
remember its autoison in very high
potency  at considerable intervals.
Let it be well understood that I am
here  speaking  of the  uric  acid
diathesis, and not of the uric acid
deposits.  It is of the very highest
importance always to keep in one's
mind the diathesis  separate from
the gouty  attack and  the gouty
tophi.  The  homoeopathicity  of
the remedy  to  the diathesis  is
mainly historic ; the homoeopathic-
ity of the remedy to the attack is
mainly present  and actual.  It is 
       Gout and its Cure.      137

 just  because these two  are con-
 sidered together that the homoeo-
 pathic literature of gout is so poor.
 And  that others have thought of
 the sycotic nature of arthritis may
 be inferred from the fact that  Thuja
 occidentalis has been recommended
 as an anti-arthritic; but clearly it
 was so recommended for the arthritic
 dyspepsia, and not for the arthritic
 attack;  and  hence  we  are  not
 surprised to find that, having used
 it  in  the attacks  without benefit,
 they  have  written of   Thuja as
useless in gout.  In the attacks it
is  indeed useless; in the  arthritic
dyspepsia it is a princely remedy.

CASE  OF CHRONIC GOUT IN  THE
       FEET AND  ANKLES.
  In  the spring  of t 1891 I was 
138     Gout and its Cure.
requested to go some distance into
Surrey  to  see  a lady of 60 years
of age who was bedridden for many
months from gout in her feet  and
ankles.   It  had started, so it  was
said,  from  a  chill caught while
sitting at a railway station waiting
for a train.  The feet were swelled,
very hot, reddish, stiff, and so pain-
ful that the patient swooned when
I pressed them but gently.  There
was persistent insomnia and great
depression of spirits. After a year's
treatment she was discharged quite
well,  and has  since so remained,
and with rather unusual activity of
limb.   The fact is, having been
for  a time deprived of  the use  of
her feet,  and recovered the  same
only  by  slow  degrees,  she  set
greater value on her power of loco- 
Gout and its Cure.     139
motion than ever before in her life.
She had the following remedies, in
the order named—Urtica urens 0,
Cypripedium pub. 0, Apis mel.  3X,
Menyanthes  trifoliata  3X,  Bellis
perennis  0,  and Viscum album  1,
and after the use of the last named,
patient walked  from two  to four
miles a day, with comfort, pleasure,
and satisfaction.  And  the cure
holds good to date.

        GOUTY INSOMNIA.
  A gentleman, 80 years of age,
formerly in the army, came under
my observation on  February  17,
1893, for insomnia, distinctly due
to his being full of gout.   " I can-
not get any sleep without chloral;
as soon  as  I lie down at night I
get hot, burning, and itchy."  His 
140     Gout and its Cure.
gouty eczema he had got a little
under with  the  aid  of  sulphur
baths. I ordered him Urtica urens 0,
10 drops in  water, three times a
day.
   March 3.—" This medicine has
done me an immensity of good, but
has given me nettle-rash!"
   And apropos of nettle-rash, every-
body knows  that  the name of the
rash  is due  to the power of the
nettle to produce just this kind of
rash ; those who question this can
readily put it to the test of practical
scientific experiment by handling a
few nettles with gloveless hands.
I have very often cured nettle-rash
with the nettle-tincture, as so many
others have done before me.
  It seems to me that if any honest
enquirer is reaily desirous of putting 
Gout and its Cure.     141
the truth of homoeopathy roughly,
yet readily, to the test,  he need
only handle a few nice nettles with
gloveless hands, when he will find
that nettles really do produce nettle-
rash ; and then if he will treat a few
cases  of nettle-rash, occurring as a
disease, with  some  nettle-tea  or
tincture, he will find that the nettle
really does cure the disease nettle-
rash ;  .   .  .  and, if that is not
homoeopathy, pray what is it ?

        GOUTY FISTULA.
  Although fistula is not frequently
primarily  due to gout, still I have
met with some cases of fistula dis-
tinctly of  a gouty nature.
  In the month of  January, 1893,
a gentleman, 30 odd years of age,
sought my advice in regard to a
      K 
142     Gout and its Cure.
fistula in ano—external and incom-
plete—that  had  started  with  an
abscess about a year before.  After
treating him for some time on the
same lines which I commonly fol-
low  in the treatment of fistula, I
found there was a something present
barring progress towards a proper
constitutional cure. And just when
I thought we were at the end of our
task, the fistula suddenly inflamed,
and  it was not  until patient  had
had a course of  Urtica for a while,
and  finally, after taking Spiritus
glandium  quercus for some  six
months with interruptions, that he
reported  himself  as  quite  cured.
He had what might very  properly
be called fistulitis from indulgence
in drink, and each  time it yielded
very speedily to Quercus.   Patient 
Gout and its Cure.     143
himself soon found out which of the
remedies  did the good, for on one
occasion,  being at a distance,  he
telegraphed for this particular medi-
cine.   The  fact  is, the  bouts  of
acute fistulitis followed immediately
on  certain champagne breakfasts
and lobster suppers.
  The Spiritus glandium quercus
has helped me promptly in several
other cases of fistula in which the
fistulas had become constitutional
issues for the  excess of alcohol
taken  into the  economy.  There
are certain cases of fistula that are
due  almost solely to alcoholism,
and these fistulas are simply issues.
Woe   to  the  patients   if  these
fistular issues  are  cured  (?)  by
operation. 
144     Gout and its Cure.
THE  HEART AND KIDNEY AFFEC-
 TIONS FOLLOWING IN THE WAKE
            OF GOUT.
  Having  gone over  some of the
main points in the treatment of the
gouty attack and the gouty diathesis,
We come now to a consideration of
those affections of heart and  kid-
neys  that  follow in the  wake of
gout; and indeed it is here that we
have  the most difficult  duties to
perform and the most  complicated
problems to solve.  I mention the
heart and kidney affections as being
of primary  and vital importance;
but in truth there is no single part
of the economy that remains in  a
really sound condition,  for  with
cardiac deterioration there is, pari
passu, also a degraded  state of the 
Gout and its Cure.     145
arteries certainly,  and perhaps  of
the veins, and in  equal step with
this  the liver is  inadequate, the
digestion is painful and laborious,
the bowels  constipated, the throat
may be relaxed and catarrhal, and
attacks of angina pectoris,  gas-
tralgia, and " spasms " are far from
infrequent.   The skin,   too,  is
almost  sure  to  show  signs  of
malnutrition,  eczema  being very
common ; and vascular naevi, senile
warts,  and the like are very often
met  with.   It   necessarily  lies
beyond the scope of this volume to
discuss the treatment for all these
ailments, but a short glance at the
main medicines  will not be out  of
place.
  A   very  frequently  indicated
remedy is gold—Aurum, either the 
146     Gout and its Cure.
Aurum  metallicum,  the  Aurum
muriaticum,  or  the Aurum  muri-
aticum  natronatum.    And  this
remedy is all the more frequently
called  for  on account of the past
history of some of the wrorst cases
of post-arthritic heart affections.
  Strophanthus—I generally use the
first centesimal  dilution — helps
much,  notably where the mischief
lies as between and concerning the
liver and  the right  side of  the
heart.
  Where fatty decay is a prominent
feature  Phosphorus does  good,  but
Vanadium is here my sheet-anchor
—it meets  the  atheroma of  the
areries  of brain and liver to  a
nicety, and thus fills a unique place
as being  a real remedy  of this
organic change, and, as an alternate 
Gout and its Cure.     147
remedy,Bellisperennis is a princely
medicine.  Vanadium 5 and Bellis 0
month about (with an intercurrent
hepatic or two) have in my hands,
time and again, restored veritable
physical  wrecks to health.
  Digitaline2* (Keith's) ever holds
its own as a cardiac tonic.  Conval-
laria  majalis, too, is a sure friend
in the gouty heart, and the same
may be affirmed of Cactus grandi-
floris.  The  liver, pancreas,  and
spleen lie physically between the
heart and kidneys, and must be con-
comitantly considered in some cases.
The gouty dyspepsia having  had
its  hearing,  the  kidney  troubles
proper loom  large in the graver
cases,  and need the very  greatest
attention,as in them lie the ground
causes of so  many constitutional 
148     Gout and its Cure.
upbreakings.   Above all things in
this regard  we  must take  into
account the state of the arteries as
leading up to the shedding of the
epithelial cells and the exudation
of albumen.
  Where there is grit and  gravel
present,  I have  had cause to  be
satisfied  with Urticus urens 0 and
Coccus cacti 0 in alternation at the
beginning of the  treatment,  but
their action is not very deep-going.
Where the urine is muddy,  pea-
soupy, the ancient Solidago  virga
aurea 0 soothes the kidneys gently
—I had  almost said  sweetly—5
drops  in a tablespoonful of water
is my usual dose.  But  Solidago is
also a not very deep-going remedy.
Coccinella septempunctata acts  very
like it, but goes down a little deeper 
Gout and its Cure.     149
and stands midway between it and
Cantharis, which fits the hot con-
gestive quality of nephritis, but the
dose must be infinitesimal. Where
there is renal bleeding,  Terebinth
(not lower than the 3X) has classic
claims on our attention. Phosphoric
acid—about No.  1—is very  sooth-
ing to the kidneys when the  urine
is notably phosphatic In Bright's
disease  a  past  grand  master in
therapeutics  has all his work cut
out,  and  he  will need all his
knowledge,   however  great,  of
climate,  diet, raiment, and  thera-
peutics.  The remedy which, taken
by itself, has done most in my hands
in  chronic  Bright's  disease is
Mercurius, about the third tritura-
tion.  A tincture of cloves, in the
same strength, wall bring down the 
150     Gout and its Cure.
quantity of albumen excreted very
frequently, and concomitantly there-
with  there  is a rise  in patient's
feeling of well-being.  Considering
that cloves cause albuminuria, their
use as a condiment  should be con-
demned  and  forbidden.   But  the
more gentle renal remedies, such as
Solidago, Coccinella, and Coccus cacti,
are very  soothing and helpful in
alternation with these deeper-going
remedies capable of inducing, and
curing, organic change.  It is often
veryhelpful in chronic gouty kidney
to consider the patient in his or her
entirety, and not forget the patients
while studying their kidneys.  We
shall  often find that the kidneys
are  spokesmen  for  themselves
first certainly, but  for  the  liver,
heart  and arteries,  and skin,  and, 
Gout and its Cure.     151
 indeed,  I  would  affirm  of the
 organ which  we call the  kidney,
 and of  the  organism,  that the
 organ speaks  for  the  organism
 and the organism  speaks  for the
 organ,  each  one  " for  self and
 partner."

         GOUTY ECZEMA.
  This is an  affection on which I
 claim to speak with authority, as I
 have  seen  a good  deal of it, and
 know  how to cure it.   For my
 general  views  of  the  nature  of
 cutaneous  affections  I  refer my
 readers to my  small book, entitled
 Diseases of the Skin.
  In general, it will be found that
gouty eczema is of a twofold nature,
and, not infrequently, of a threefold
nature, which can be  very prettily 
152     Gout and its Cure.
demonstrated during one's clinical
work,  provided  the sufferers  are
patient, which is not  always  the
case, for patience is not commonly
an attribute of your gouty person.
Your thoroughly gouty individual
may have himself well in hand, and
always stop to dot his i's and cross
his t's and make no use of unscrip-
tural expletives, but he is at best
a  pent-up  volcano.  He  ma}r  be
very suave and gentle,  yielding
and complaisant, but that is from
principle, or training, or pride; au
naturel he  is a wild creature, and
his subject state is the result of
taming.  He particularly wants his
gouty  eczema cured quickly;  the
nasty thing must be got rid of right
away,  and hence he falls a ready
prey to the skin doctors, who know 
Gout and its Cure.     153
so little and are so dangerously
shallow  that they can confidently
and  conscientiously tell you that
the skin affection is a merely local
affair,  which lanoline or ichthyol,
with a due  proportion of carbolic,
will  readil}^ cure.  These  medi-
cators  really believe that a new fat
is a  medical discovery of the first
magnitude,  and yet, in very truth,
neither ichthyol, nor lanoline, nor
vaseline is  one  whit more of  a
cure for skin  diseases  than the
good  old pig's lard or a  tallow
candle.
  We  have had a vaseline era  in
dermatology, then came the era of
lanoline, and  at  present  we are
basking in the  full glory of the era
of ichthyol, and  it is all as  inane
as we can well  imagine. 
154     Gout and its Cure.
  To cure gouty eczema we require
patience  and perseverence of no
ordinary kind,and all the resources
of   a   scientific  pharmacology.
Thanks  to  one  Samuel  Hahne-
mann, we have a scientific pharma-
cology, and its  data may be found
in Allen's Encyclopedia of  Materia
Medica Pura.
  How long  does it take to cure
gouty eczema ?
Speaking for nn'self, I may  say
that I rarely succeed under a 3rear
or a year and  a half,  and it is
often longer, and sometimes much
longer, but then I really cure.
  The  first principle in the treat-
ment of gouty eczema is negative:
use no external applications what-
ever, for the  affection is not  only
constitutional, but it is  also mostly 
Gout and its Cure.     155
compound  and  complex  in  its
nature; and,  I  declare  most em-
phatically, that the external treat-
ment of  gouty  eczema is most
dangerous—nay, I would say that it
is positively idiotic.   Surely, if we
have  a disease it is better outside
than inside, and it, in  the end, does
not help  us to lay the  flattering
unction to our souls that our family
blood is faultlessly pure when it is
not.   "There is no disease in our
family," one  often hears  ; but is it
so?   Certain  breeds  are stronger
than others, and given families  in
their blood-lives are relatively less
impure than certain others, but
people of  absolutely clean, pure
blood / have never  known.  Our
family  taints are printed  in our
skins in very bold type  indeed,— 
156     Gout and its Cure.
only, happily, not every  one can
read the record.
  Where the  gouty  eczema has
become  the cutaneous  outlet  for
the constitution, its uric nature has
to be borne in mind, and, in such
cases,  Acidum uricum 6,  Urea 6,
and Acidum lacitum 6, render not-
able service.
  Where there is much irritation I
have  used  Persicaria urens 6,  12,
30,  with much benefit.
  Where the whites of the eyes are
dirty-looking and lustreless, Euony-
mus taropurp., Diplotaxis 0, and
other hepatics are great favourites
of mine in gout3' eczema.
  Where there is a demonstrable
sycotic  taint, I use all the  antisy-
cotis — such  as   Thuja,  Sabina,
Acid, tiit.,  Cupressus, Medorrh.— 
Gout and its Cure.     157
 with a free  hand, but mostly  in
 high and higher potencies at infre-
 quent intervals.  And every organ
 disease must be put right by its
 appropriate organ remedies.
   Mercunus, Hepar, and Rhus ven.
 are also frequently indicated.  Occa-
 sionally,  when the wetting  ooze
 dries up in layers, Castor equi has
 helped  me.   When  the  skin  is
 brown, or has brown patches, Sepia,
 Iodium,  and Bacillin and Choles-
 terin are friends indeed and in-
 deed. The ultimate court of appeal
 is the Materia Medica Pura; and
 the Repertory  shows the way  to
 discover  the  right  remedis.  As
 a very needful check  on aimless
wanderings in this field, however,
we find  an accurate knowledge  of
the  pathology—the  morbid  bio-
L 
158     Gout and its Cure.
logy—of  the case in point,  and
if to this we add the fundamental
principle, that in scientific thera-
peutics  the  curative range  of a
given remedy is fixed by its patho-
genetic powers and possibilities, we
are pretty sure  to reach the goal.
You cannot, however, hit the target
a mile off with a gun  that only
carries fifty yards—no  remedy is
therapeutically greater than is the
drug pathogenetically. 
INDEX.
              ----»o;*;o«.----

Acid, nit.,  156.
Aconite, 3, 51.
Acorns,  distilled spirit  of,  antidotal to
    alcohol, 76.
Alcohol, on  a remedy homoeopathically
     antidotal to the effects of, 76, 82.
Alkaline treatment of gout, 59,  63.
Alkalies, their  effect  on  gout  mainly
         chemical, 67.
     "   use of, 43.
Antisycotic nosodes, 124.
Apis mel. for gout in feet and ankles, 149.
Aurum metallicum for heart and kidney
         affections,  145.
     "  muriaticum natronatum as used
       for gout, 31,  146.
Bacillinum as used for gout, 51, 164.
Bellis perennis as used for gout, 53, 145,
     153-
Bicarbonate of soda, opinion of its value
     by weighty men, 57. 
i6o
Index.
Boils, Scinde, in Indian officer, cured by
    urtica, 48.
Brain-workers and their use of stimulants,
    8.
Breath, stercoraceous,  cured by spiritus
    glandium quercus, 89, 91.
Bright's disease, remedy for, 149.
Brown, S.  W. C, his case of nephritic
    calculi, 52.
Bryonia, 3, 51, 124.
Cactus grandifloris for  gouty  heart,  147.
Cantharis, 149.
Castor equi,  157.
Chelidonium, chelone, carduus, cholester-
    inum, often of very  greatest aid in
    gout, 123, 157.
Citric acid, use of,  in gout,  125.
Coccus cacti,  coccinella, 124,148, 148,  150.
             for grit and gravel,  148.
Cod-liver oil  cure for  gout,  102.
Colchicum, a family  doctor's  favourite
           remedy, 1.
          its effects on the kidneys, 28.
          its influence over the  gouty
             manifestations, 29. 
Index.            161
Colchicum, use of, 43.
           when not suitable for gout, 3.
Conium for malignant disease  of tongue,
    94-
Constipation  requires  homoeopathy  for
    cure, 123.
Convallaria majalis for gouty heart,  147.
Cupressus, 156.
Cypripedium pubescens as used for gout,
    5i, 139-
Daphne mezereon, use of, in gout, 51.
Digitaline, Keith's,  as a cardiac  tonic,
    147.
Diplotaxis tenuifolia, 123.
Dysmenorrhcea treated as gout, 17.
Eczema,  gouty, 151.
    "    see Dr. Burnett on  Diseases of
    the Skin.
Euonymus atropurp.  diplotaxis for gouty
    eczema, 156.
Epstein,  his experiments, 25.
Exhaustion gout and surfeit gout in  the
                 same individual, 13.
               cured by better diet and
    stimulants, 8, 10. 
162             Index.
Fasting experiments apt to produce gout,
    9-
Feet and ankles, case of chronic gout in
    the, 137.
Fever of gout, 74.
Fistula, gouty, 141.
Food and work, 109.
Fruit and vegetables, do they conduce to
    longevity, 129.
Fruit, is it good or bad for gout, 126.
Gichtwasser of Wiesbaden as a remedy for
             gout, 60, 62, 66.
          useful in the cure of uric acid
    and gravel, 68.
Gold as a remedy in gout, 30.
Gonorrhoea, its influence  in  producing
    gouty diathesis,  132.
Gout, case  of chronic,  in *the feet and
          ankles, 137.
  "   case of city magnate, 92.
            Colonel X., 82.
            country squire, 89.
  "  cod-liver oil cure for, 102.
  "  cured by urtica urens, 72.
  ''  fever of, 74. 
Index.            163
Gout followed by heart and kidney affec-
        tions,  144.
  "   homoeo-therapeutics of, 69.
  "   hot-water cure for, 102.
  ''   is fruit good or bad for, 126.
  ''   treatment of constitutional basis of,
     121.
  "   what is it, 18.
Goutiness an acute disease, 16.
Gouty  attack,  case  of  middle-aged
               maiden lady, 33.
               description   of   various
               cases of, 43.
               have  we a  remedy  or
               remedies essentially ho-
               moeopathic to the, 32.
  "  diathesis  as  influenced  by gonor-
        rhoea,  132.
  "  eczema, 151.
             see Dr. Burnett on Diseases
        of the  Skin.
  "  fistula,  141.
  "  gastralgia of 13  years'  duration
        cured by urtica urens, 120.
  "  insomnia. 139. 
164            Index.
Gouty ophthalmia,  case  of,  cured  by
    urtica, 73.
  ''  state, differences between the cure by
        mineral  water and alkalies and
        by homoeopathic treatment, 67.
Gravel expelled by urtica urens, 33, 36,
        38.
  "   piperazine and Gichtwasser treat-
    ment preferable for, 68.
Hahnemann and Homoeopathy, 46.
Heart and kidney  affections succeeding
    gout, 144.
Height and weight,  112.
Hepar sulphuris in gout, 124.
Hepatics are often valuable in gout, 123.
Herba  delvey  a  remedy  among  the
    Mexicans, 54.
Hohenheim on the nature of gout, 117.
Holtz, Dr., on the fever of gout, 74.
Homoeopathic literature  of gout is not
           brilliant, 24.
          remedies preferable to mineral
           water and alkalies in  cure of
           the gouty state, 68.
          treatment of gout  cures  com-
    pletely, 27. 
Index.            165
Homoeo-therapeuticsofgout, the true, 69.
Hot-water cure of Gout, 102.
Hydrochloric acid, use of, in gout, 125.
Idiosyncrasy, 132.
Insomnia, gouty, 139.
Iodine often of great aid in gout,  123,
    157-
Iris versicolor often valuable in gout, 123.
Jaborandi used  for  gout with good re-
    sults, 31,  123.

Kidney and heart  affections  following
    in the wake of gout, 144.

Lactic acid,  use of, in gout,  125.
        " valuable in gouty eczema, 156.
'' Liver ''  and  malarialism  in  Indian
    officer  cured by  urtica  urens and
    natrum muriaticum, 49.
Lycopodium, 124.
Malarialism  and '' liver '' cured by urtica,
    49-
Materia Medica Pura, 157.
Medorrh., 156.
Mercurius often valuable in gout, 123, 157. 
166
Index.
Milk diet as prescribed for gout,  16.
Mineral  water, its influence on gout, 63,
    67.
Mordhorst,  Dr. C,  of Wiesbaden, his
    paper on gout, 58.
Morphia, hypodermic  injection  of, pre-
    scribed, 55, 56.
Myrica cerifera often  of great  aid  in
    gout, 123.
Menyanthes trifoliata,  139.
Natrum  muriaticum as used for gout, 30,
                33. 64.
            ''   as used for '' liver'' and
    malarialism, 49.
Necrosis of the nails,  case of, cured, 85.
Nettle, story of the, as a medicine, 40.
Nettle-tea  acts as well as the tincture of
    urtica, 38.
Nettle, the common stinging, 33, 38.
Nephritic calculi, aggravated case of, suc-
    cessfully treated with piperazine, 52.
Nitric acid, use of, in gout, 125.
Nux vomica, 123.
Ophthalmia,   gouty,  case of, cured by
    urtica urens,  74. 
Index.            167
Oranges as used for gout, 6.
Oxalic acid, use of, in gout, 127.
Paget,  Sir James, his treatment of ex-
    haustion gout, 10.
Paracelsic motto on title  page expresses
    author's philosophy,  21.
Paracelsus on gout, 117.
Pancreatics often render eminent services
    in gout,  123.
Persicaria urens as used for gout, 124.
            "  for eczema, 156.
Petroleum as used for varicose veins, 89.
Phenocoll hydrochloride,  56.
Phosphoric  acid very  soothing to  the
    kidneys,  149.
Phosphorus for fatty decay, 146.
Physalis alkekengi as used for gout, 51.
Pilocarpine often  of  eminent  service in
             gout, 123.
          used  for   gout  with  good
             results,  31.
Piperazine and alkaline treatment, 59, 64,
    66.
Piperazine and Gichtwasser treatment in
    gravel, 68. 
i68
Index.
Piperazine successful in aggravated case
    of nephritic calculi, 52.
Port wine as used for gout, 4.
Pulsatilla as used for gout, 51, 123, 124.
Rademacher, his treatment by acorn medi-
              cine, 77.
             his treatment of gout, 119.
Repertory, 125, 157.
Rhus as used for gout, 51, 124, 157.
Rubia tinctoria as used for gout, 124.
Sabina, 124, 156.
Salisbury treatment of gout,  104.
Sepia for eczema,  157.
Skin, see Dr. Burnett on Diseases of the.
Solidago virga aurea,  124, 150,  151, 152.
Spiritus glandium quercus  antidotal to
     alcohol, 76,  81, 82, 83,  86, 87.
Spiritus glandium quercus, case of country
     squire cured by, 89.
Spiritus glandium quercus, case of gentle-
     man having craving for drink, 100.
Spiritus glandium quercus, case of giddi-
     ness, flatulent dyspepsia, etc., cured
     by, 92.
Spiritus glandium quercus,  case of vari- 
Index.            169
     cose veins and enlarged spleen cured
     by, 88.
Spiritus  glandium quercus,  does it  ex-;
     tend to the liquor habit ?  94.
Spiritus  glandium  quercus,  in gouty
     insomnia,  139, 140.
Spiritus  glandium quercus regarded by
     Rademacher as a spleen medicine, 81.
Spiritus   glandium  quercus,  used  for
     necrosis of the nails, 85.
Spleen, case of enlarged, 88.
"Spleen,  Diseases  of  the,"   by  Dr.
     Burnett, 79.
Stimulants, when required for gout, 7.
Storck, Baron, his experience, 93.
Strophanthus, its use in  gout, 146.
Sulphur, use of, in gout, 124.
Surfeit gout curable by  abstemiousness,
               12.
          ''   and exhaustion  gout in the
     same individual, 13.
Terebinth for renal bleeding, 149.
Thuja, 124, 156.
  ''   as*  used for case of necrosis of  the
     nails,  86. 
170
Index.
Tongue, case of maligant disease of,  93.
Tripperseuche,   in   German  medical
     thought world, 133.
" Tumours, Curability of, by Medicine,"
     by Dr.  Burnett, 98.
Urate of sodium, urea,  and uric acid, in
     treatment of gout, 50, 125.
Uric acid and urea, valuable  for gouty
     eczema, 156.
Uric acid diathesis as affected by homoeo-
                   pathic remedies,  64.
             ''  defined by Dr. C. Mord-
                   horst as gout, 58.
                in connection  with gon-
                   orrhoea, 135.
                may require  very dif-
    ferent remedies in  individuals, 122.
Uric acid may be got rid of  by  Gicht-
    wasser,  urtica, etc.,  without  real
    cure, 66.
Urtica  urens,   almost  every   case  has
               yielded to, 42.
               a powerful splenic, 37.
               a remedy for gout,  32. 
Index.            171
Urtica urens capable of producing fever,
             35, 46.
        ''   case of a gentleman, aged 50,
             long in India, cured by, 44.
        ''   case of country squire cured
             by, 45-
        "   case of "liver" and malarial-
             ism cured by, 49.
  "     "   case of Lord X.' s attack cured
             by, 72.
        "   case  of middle-aged gentle-
             man, cured by, 43.
        ''   case of Scinde boils cured by,
             48.
  "     "   cures gouty gastralgia of 13
             years' duration, 120.
        "   cures the  gouty attack, 99.
  "     "   for gouty insomnia, 139.
  "     "   for grit and gravel, 148.
  "     "   gets rid of uric acid, 95.
  "     "   has  great  gravel-expelling
             power, 33,  36, 38.
  "     "   in case of chronic  gout  in
             feet and ankles, 137. 
172
Index.
Urtica urens in case of gouty ophthalmia,
             73-
        ''  in case of middle-aged maiden
             lady, 33.
        "  is a true simile to gout, 75.
        ''  pathogenetic fever of,  46.

Vanadium as used for cure of necrosis of
             the nails, 85.
           for fatty decay, 146,  147.
Varicose veins, case of, 88.
Vegetables and fruit, do they conduce to
     longevity? 129.
Vertigo cured by urtica, 47.
Viscum album as used for gout,  139.

Whisky as prescribed for gout, 2.
Wiesbaden Gichtwasser as a remedy for
     gout,  60, 62,  66, 68.

X., Sir Edward, as treated for gout, 3.
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