Page:A treatise on gout (IA treatiseongout00duck).pdf/19



FROM time to time during the last twelve years, I have been engaged in the study of Gout, and have published some contributions to the subject in certain volumes of the St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports. Five or six years ago, I determined to write a treatise on Gout, and had made some progress with the work. Various causes, however, led me to falter in this resolution, and 1 laid aside my manuscripts. Yet this subject has always had interest for me, and I have never ceased to study and make notes of it as opportunities offered. Two years ago, I was urged, by those whose opinion I value, to complete the work I had begun, and, with some misgivings, I resumed it. The result I now venture to lay before the Profession.

In doing so, I cannot but feel that some apology is due for intruding myself into the company (already too large) of authors on this well-worn subject-especially since the attempt to write a work that should be worthy of all that is now demanded from an author who ventures to publish a treatise on a special disease, is confessedly difficult.

In the case of a malady like Gout, the task is, in my opinion, beyond the powers of any one Physician, if he seeks to write a complete work, and to bring to each part of it fresh contributions and new light. It would require no less than that he should be, at once, a good Anatomist, Physiologist, Pathologist, and Chemist, as well as a trained and accomplished clinical observer.-One may well ask, therefore, who is sufficient for all this? My own stand-point throughout the present work is that of a Physician