Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/76

In a case where there is an extraordinary quantity of matter, in people that indulged their genius much; upon the accession of a fitt, it plays a bolder game. After you have extinguish'd it in the toe and tarsus, it takes the ankle, then the knee, and perhaps the like in the other leg. If there be quantity enough, it will enlarge its province with hands, elbows, sholders &c; in this most horrible case the oyls cure as it goes. As fast as you pursue it, so surely you subdue it. Dr. Havers observes in the cure of a rheumatism that mucilaginous and oyly pectoral medicins are aptly prescrib'd. He says 'tis imitating nature's composition, correcting and restoring the mucilaginous juices she provides for the muscular membranes, in whose glands the seat of the distemper lies: substituting an artificial mixture which supplys the defect of that which the morbific matter has vitiated. And this I find by experience to be true. In the most severe rheumatism, where the humor has attack'd every joint from the head to the toe end; we have follow'd it with unction: and in a fortnight's time totally subdu'd that frightful distemper; which otherwise in the ordinary manner of treatment would have lasted some months, and kept the patient in exquisite torture all the while. And this shows incontestably that the humor of the rheuma-

tism