Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/15

Rh forming a favourite dish with Eastern epicures. The elongated snake-gourds of India and China (Trichosanthes) are said to be used in curries and stews. All the gourds have a tendency to secrete the cathartic principle colocynthin, and in many varieties of Cucurbita and the allied genera it is often elaborated to such an extent as to render them unwholesome, or even poisonous. The seeds of some species possess rather strong anthelmintic properties ; those of the common pumpkin are frequently administered in America as a vermifuge. The cultivation of gourds commenced far beyond the dawn of history, and the esculent species have become so modified by culture that the original plants from which they have descended can no longer be traced. The abundance of varieties in India would seem to indicate that -part of Asia as the birth place of the present edible forms ; but some appear to have been cultivated in all the hotter regions of that continent, and in North Africa, from the earliest ages, while the Romans were familiar with at least certain kinds of Cucur bita, and with the bottle-gourd. It is even doubtful whether the culture of gourds had not spread to the American continent before its discovery by Europeans ; for the Indian tribes of the interior were certainly in possession of some kinds at a date so early that it is difficult to believe they had received them from the settlers. Dr Asa Gray has even suggested that some of these esculent forms may possibly have been indigenous to the American plains. Most of the annual gourds may be grown successfully in Britain. They are usually raised in hotbeds or under frames, and planted out iu rich soil in the early summer as soon as the nights become warm. The more ornamental kinds may be trained over trellis-work, a favourite mode of displaying them in the East ; but the situation must be sheltered and sunny. Even the Lagenarice will sometimes produce fine fruit when so treated in the southern counties,  GOURGAUD, (1783-1852), a French general of artillery, was born at Versailles, 14th September 1783. After studying at the polytechnic school and at the artillery school of Chalons, he joined the artillery in 1802, and, having acquitted himself with distinction in several campaigns, he received in 1807 the cross of honour and the grade of captain. He served in the subsequent Spanish and Austrian campaigns, and in 1811 he was sent to report on the strength of the fortifications of Dantzic, a mission which lie fulfilled so much to the satisfaction of Napoleon that he was named one of the emperor s ordnance officers. During the Russian campaign he was the first to enter the Kremlin at Moscow, where he removed the match from a large quantity of powder the explosion of which would in all pro bability have destroyed the emperor s life. For this service he received the title of baron. He accompanied the em peror in his subsequent campaigns, and in 1814, at the battle of Brienne, was again successful in delivering him f ro:ri imminent peril. After the accession of Louis XVIII. he was named chief of the staff of the first artillery division, bat on the return of Napoleon from Elba he was neverthe less named by him adjutant and general, and took part in the battle of Waterloo. Being one of the three French officers chosen by Napoleon to accompany him to St Helen;), he was employed thera in collecting materials for a history of Napoleon s campaigns, but on account of some misunder standing with Montholon, he left the island, and went to England. He published in 1818 La Campagne de 1815, and he also endeavoured to interest the emperors of Russia and Austria in Napoleon s behalf. Shortly afterwards he was expelled from England as a spy of Napoleon s. Return ing to France in 1821, he published, along with Montholon, in 1823, Mernoires de Napoleon a Sainte-IIelene. His re ply in 1825 to Segur s Histoire de la Grande Armee was the occasion of a duel between the two authors ; and he also, in 1827, became involved in a controversy with Sir Walter Scott regarding some statements made by the latter in his life of Napoleon. After the July revolution of 1830, Gourgaud was appointed to the command of the artillery of Paris and Vincennes ; in 1832 he was named aide-de-camp of the king, and in 1835 lieutenant-general. In 1840 he was one of the commissioners sent to bring the remains of Napoleon to France. On the occurrence of the revolution of February 1848 his name was struck off the list of generals, but after the events of the following June he was chosen colonel of the first legion of the national guard of Paris. In 1849 he was elected representative of the legisla tive assembly for the department of Deux-Sevres. He died 25th July 1852.  GOUT, a specific constitutional disorder connected with excess of uric acid in the blood, and manifesting itself by inflammation of joints, with deposition therein of urate of soda, and also by morbid changes in various important organs. The term gout, which was first used about the end of the 13th century, is derived through the French goutte from the Latin gutta, a drop, in allusion to the old pathological doc trine (which in the present case seems to be essentially the correct one) of the dropping of a morbid material from the blood within the joints. The disease was known and de scribed by the ancient Greek physicians under various terms, which, however, appear to have been applied by them alike to rheumatism and gout. The general term arthritis ([Greek], a joint) was employed when many joints were the seat of inflammation ; while in those instances where the disease was limited to one part the terms used bore refer ence to such locality ; hence podagra (TroSaypa, from TTO^S, the foot, and aypa, a seizure), chiragra (x ft pj the hand), gonagra (yovv, the knee), &c. Hippocrates in his Aphorisms speaks of gout as occurring most commonly in spring and autumn, and mentions the fact that women are less liable to it than men. He also gives directions as to treatment. Celsus gives a similar account of the disease. Galen regarded gout as an un natural accumulation of humours in a part, and the chalk- stones as the concretions of these, and he attributed the disease to over-indulgence and luxury. Gout is alluded to in the works of Ovid and Pliny, and Seneca in his 95th epistle mentions the prevalence of gout among the Roman ladies of his day as one of the results of their high-living and debauchery. Lucian in his Tragopodagra gives an amusing account of the remedies employed for the cure of gout, In all times this disease has engaged a large share of the attention of physicians, from its wide prevalence, and from the amount of suffering which it entails. Sydenham, the famous English physician of the 17th century, wrote an important treatise on the subject, and his description of the gouty paroxysm, all the more vivid from his having himself been afflicted with the disease for thirty-four years, is still quoted by writers as the most graphic and exhaustive account of the symptomatology of gout. Substquently Cullen, recognizing gout as capable of manifesting itself in various ways, divided the disease into regular gout, which affects the joints only, and irregular goiit, where the gouty disposition exhibits itself in other forms ; and the latter variety he subdivided into atonic gout, where the most pro- and alimentary canal ; retrocedent gout, where the inflam matory attack suddenly disappears from an affected joint and serious disturbance takes place in some internal organ, generally the stomach or heart ; and misplaced gout, where from the first the disease does not appear externally, but reveals itself by an inflammatory attack of some internal part. Dr Garrod, one of the most eminent living authorities 
 * minent symptoms are throughout referable to the stomach