Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/88

So much the more ought we to congratulate our selves for a remedy. These accidental fitts which I call the contagion of the gout, are certainly quell'd by one or two anointings, which without it, would produce regular fitts. And whenever we find the veins turgid and the part begin to look red and hot, the signs of an approaching fitt, we are instantly to apply to the remedy: which like pouring water upon fire extinguishes it. No words can paint out the pleasure we feel,when we so easily escape. When we are reliev'd from it, in as many weeks shall I say, rather in as many days, as otherwise months: if left to the ordinary course of nature. When we escape nor only the cruelty of all the pain, the lancinating tendinous twitchings, the wakeful nights, the languishings, faintings, sicknesses, febrile heat, nausea, the dread of the least motion; the fitts of anger, despair and violent disorders of the mind; but the ill consequences too which are worse, if possible, than the primary case, in so unreasonable a confinement from air and exercise, which alone would he very prejudicial to our constitutions, without those former associates. And what is still a greater advantage, thro' this excellent remedy, we escape the melancholy prospect of a life exquisitely miserable, to those that have constant returns, the more

unhappy