Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/60

Rh veneno." As we read his pathology of it, we cannot but see all along that the humor is a poyson which nature is curing as well as she can, by plunging it into the oyl glands; every plunging is the paroxysmulus which he mentions, many of which make a paroxysmus. For as 'tis impossible in a great fitt that the oyl glands of one joint should be sufficient to extinguish that poyson, she is forc'd to divide the onsetts or fitts into little ones, to give time for the glands to recruit, and for the fame purpose she throws the humor alternately from one foot to another, and when those two limbs are not sufficient she takes in more.

5thly, The universal appearance of the gout, and what all authors write about it; that by continuance of time, it turns all the humours in the body to its own likeness, shows evidently 'tis a poyson, and that when we have long labor'd under it, the remnant of our unhappy life is but a continual struggle of nature to drive of that poyson from the first vital principle, and fight it as long as it is able. So again that common observation in it, that the sharper the fitt, the severer the pain; by so much the shorter it is, and the sooner we recover; shows likewise that 'tis a poyson. As Sydenham observes, pain is nature's most bitter remedy in the case, which