A letter to Dr. Chambers ... on several important points relating to the nature and proper treatment of gout / by Sir Charles Scudamore.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Dr. Chambers ... on several important points relating to the nature and proper treatment of gout / by Sir Charles Scudamore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and uninterrupted opportunities of seeing and treating the disease, I venture to claim the pri- vilege of expressing my opinions with a greater share of confidence ; since they are founded on the touchstone of all theory—experience. The gout is not now, as formerly, a ne- glected disease. I well remember that a friend of mine, confined to bed by a seizure of gout over the whole of his body, and suffering from its worst tortures, sent for one of the most eminent physicians of this town that ever did honor to English medicine, and did not receive from him a second visit; because, in his can- dor and love of truth, he declared that he knew not how to treat the gout with success. Nor is it any longer a cliei'ished disease, as at the period (the year 1802) when the late Dr. Heberden gave the following lively picture of the popular notions then prevailing respecting gout. Having described its real severity, he re- marks, that “ people are neither ashamed nor afraid of it; hut are rather ambitious of sup- posing that every complaint arises from a gouty cause, and support themselves with the hope