Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/74

Rh a long series of confinement becomes utterly overthrown, all the solids by frequent swellings, pittings and relaxations are weakened, lyable to every descent of humors, all the hinges of the animal frame are subverted, every animal function is vitiated; the carcass retains but just life enough to make it capable of suffering.

During the operation of the oyls, I observe nature plays this game in miniature, which shows beyond contradiction that the artificial cure is perfectly analogous to the natural, and form'd upon a true basis, for medicin is the handmaid of nature. The solution of a fitt of the gout by means of our oyls, is much like nature's progress in the whole life of a podagric: or as the sum of all the fitts of a man's life. And if duly attended to, will lead us to the true explication of the manner of their working, and remove some superficial difficultys or objections. In the common way of solving fitts by permitting them to nature, the podagric matter gradually and slowly saturates its self, spoils the joints and their glands, as it goes, and therefore reverts to the next to feed on. In our cure by oyls, the matter being extinguish'd in every joint it comes to, and than almost as fast as it comes; if there be a further quantity, it goes to the next joint (the blood secerning it by degrees.) The former joint from the quick