experienced unaccountable feelings of coldness
and numbness in the extremities, accompanied
by prickings as with pins and needles, and
occasional cramps. For the relief of these
symptoms, which he imagined to proceed
from cold, he tried brandy-and-water. Having
taken a large and strong tumbler of this
agreeable medicine, he went to bed, hoping
to rise all right again the next day. Instead
of that, however, Mr. Bagges awoke about
two o'clock in the morning with an intolerable
pain in the ball of the great toe; a
sensation which, as he afterwards said, he
could compare to nothing but to what he
might imagine would be the torture of a
bunion under hydraulic pressure. Daylight
discovered the part affected to be somewhat
swollen, and to exhibit a slight redness on its
surface. Mr. Labell, the doctor, was sent
for: the fact was, in short, that Mr. Bagges
had got the gout.

Mr. Bagges had his foot wrapped in flannel,
bathed in hot water and in cold, leeched two
or three times, and blistered once; he was
dosed with antimony, opium, ether, ammonia,
and ipecacuanha; and, finally, with colchicum.
At last he recovered; in consequence of which
of the above measures and remedies, or
whether or not in spite of each or all of
them, it is difficult to say. But gout is
strong in its attachments. It seldom loses
sight of an acquaintance once contracted.
Regularly every year did gout attentively
return and look in upon Mr. Bagges, as
punctual and as welcome a visitor as the
collector of the income-tax. With the disease
came Mr. Labell, the doctor, and a course of
treatment so very similar to persecution as,
rather than even the sufferings of the malady
itself, to entitle our friend to be canonised as
a "martyr to the gout."

A long course of prosperity in a business
which consisted in selling medicines under
the pretence of treating disease, at length
enabled Mr. Labell to retire from practice;
and when Mr. Bagges had his next fit of the
gout, it was necessary for him to choose
another medical attendant. His choice
lighted on a practitioner, by some years
Mr. Labell's junior, a gentleman whom he
had occasionally met at the Royal Institution
on a Friday evening, and who had obliged
him by explaining to him portions of lectures
which he did not comprehend, and had made
an especial impression upon him by the
recapitulation, with explanatory remarks, of an
interesting discourse on physiology. Under
the hands of Mr. Newby, the duration of
the disorder was much less than it had ever
been previously; and the patient was soon
enabled to celebrate a happy recovery by a
moderate dinner, to which, with many
acknowledgments, he invited his physician.
In the course of the evening the conversation
turned on the subject of his recent illness.

"Well, doctor," said Mr. Bagges, "thanks
to you—now don't be modest; I will say
thanks to you; this last attack is the shortest
I ever had. Eh? but now, this is contrary
to your usual experience, is it not? Gout, I
thought—gout—the oftener it repeated its
visit, the longer it stopped with you, eh?"

"Why, Mr. Bagges," replied Newby, "that
is true enough in a general way. But the
stay of gout, like that of most guests, depends
on its reception."

"Well, I must say," observed Mr. Bagges,
"that you made me receive my guest in a
most inhospitable manner this time, with
your—what?—antiphlo—"

"Gistic," Mr. Newby suggested.

"Antiphlo—" Mr. Bagges repeated, "gistic
regimen. Labell used to say,—'Live?—oh!
live pretty much as usual. Take your—what?
—your pint of port a day. Don't eat curry—
I should say curry was a bad thing.' Eh?
now do you consider curry a bad thing?"

"A capital thing," answered Newby, " for
the gout—but not, exactly, for the patient.
With regard to curry, I should say, Mr.
Labell's advice was judicious."

"Well," continued Mr. Bagges, "I was not
to eat curry; and had better let hashed
venison alone, and avoid anything rich and
high-seasoned, and pastry—certainly not
touch pastry. 'That's all,' he would say,
'Bagges, my boy; only lay your foot up in
flannel, apply this, that, or the other lotion,
fomentation, liniment, leeches—what not—
and take the medicine I shall send.' But you
—now, you put me on what I should
certainly call short commons. You didn't starve
me!—No: I don't mean to say that; but you
did—yes, you did stop the supplies to a very
great extent."

"That was quite constitutional, sir," urged
Mr. Newby.

"Yes, it was perfectly constitutional—quite
parliamentary, considering the crisis. But,
is there no certain cure for gout—no medicine
—no recipe or prescription in particular?
Those pills of yours gave me miraculous
ease."

"There is none, Mr. Bagges, or your own
recovery should have been more rapid.
Neither for gout, sir, nor, strictly speaking,
for any other disease. There are one or two
disorders in which the conditions are pretty
uniform, and which are, therefore, generally
removable by the same means. But even
those are, in some cases, so complicated with
other ailments as to call for additional treatment.
Bark and quinine, for instance, are
said to cure ague, and, practically speaking,
so they do usually; but still they cannot be
depended on alone in that disorder.
However, for by far the greater majority of diseases,
there is no such thing at all as a special
remedy; and the treatment has to be varied
in each according to the circumstances. In
the next case of gout that I may have to
treat, I may find my patient with a dry skin,
and may have to take measures for procuring
perspiration. In yours, I found the liver