Page:Of the Gout - Stukeley - 1734.djvu/80

Rh in this disease; and if admitted will hinder the world from reaping the benefit of this method, tho' we suppose only, 'tis an effctual one. Nevertheless it behoves mankind to distinguish, to exercise judgment and to look at a distance. Possibility of danger is not to affright us from necessary and noble attempts. There is a real difference between calming this humor of the gout, or repelling it into the blood and totally extinguishing it; as much as there is in quieting a febrile flame, and extinguishing it. A foolish caution, an injudicious fearfulness in the practise of physick, is as much to be discommended as rashness and boldness.

I know full well, the danger of tampering in this or any other distemper: and I hear Sydenham pronouncing, that in the gout, 'tis nature's high prerogagative, to exterminate the morbific matter in her own way, and to throw it upon the joints, thus. "In podagra nihilominus Naturæ quasi prærogativa est, materiam peccantem suo modo exterminare, & in articulos deponere, per insensilem transpirationem difflandam". He is only mistaken in the last sentence, "per insensilem transpirationem difflandam." For the gout will by no means spend its self that way, nor can that be wise nature's intention, in throwing it upon cold, treme