Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/10

Rh the gout. He has try'd it upon himself in many fitts, the severest that can be imagined; when seiz'd in both feet, knees, hands, and shoulder all at once, and separately; and it has never fail'd removing the fitt, rather taking it quite off; without any ill effect ensuing. And 'tis a distemper he has been obnoxious to from his youth. He has likewise try'd it upon several other patients in the like case, and with the like success; the thing is notorious among us. I likewise try'd it upon my self; in three different affections of the same distemper, the latter ends of the year past. One was a sort of swelling below my left knee, upon the lower tendon of the patella and the tendons of the great muscles of the thigh, where they are inferred upon the tibia. This swelling I have had several times before, and have no reason to doubt of its being gouty; and that in time it would probably become an encystid tumor or chalky node, as usual in such cases. The second was a black spot on the joint of the great toe of my left foot: the spot was as broad as a sixpence, and black as a hat. It came, I suppose, by a bruise in walking, immediately after a fitt of the gout in that part. The third was upon the joints of the tarsus bon sbones [sic], in my right foot, when affected with the gout. I anointed all these, and the event was, that