Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/61

which the more vehement it is, so much it shortens the fitt, makes the intermission longer and more perfect. The crueller has been the conflict, so much more oyl and labor has nature expended to procure a victory. Would we then know the nature of the gout, we need only read Dr. Mead's book of poysons, and be fully appriz'd of the matter. I doubt not but the poysonous drop of the gout is similar to that of a venomous bite, as Dr. Mead observ'd it upon a microscope glass; a parcel of small salts nimbly floating in a liquor and striking out into crystals of incredible tenuity and sharpness, he calls them spicula and darts. Such likewise in the drop emitted by the sting of a bee, and in the common nettle. He found by experiments that 'tis of an acid nature. He solves the symptoms by the pungent salts of the venom acting as stimuli, irritating the sensile membranes, deriving a greater afflux than ordinary, of the animal juices that way. In speaking of the poyson of vipers being swallow'd without harm, he attributes it to the balsam of the bile, which proves an antidote to those saline spicula. And treating of the cure from the axungia viperina, he says it consists of clammy and viscid parts, which are withal more penetrating and active than most