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ns. Among these he mentions, as primary and of general application, the rule that, before all things, the body must be purified, either by venesection in cases where the material is sanguineous, or by purgation in other varieties of the disease. If the cause is rheumatic in its nature, fomentations should never be employed, for fear of increasing the flux. That the peccant material is to be eliminated gradually by mild remedies, just as it accumulated by degrees. In all cases of gout, and in all chronic diseases generally, much attention must be devoted to the stomach, since if this organ rejects the medicine, the latter must be at once abandoned, lest the stomach becomes weakened and even other organs, and thus the humors flow more readily (_magis reumatizarent_) to the joints, etc. These general medical rules are succeeded by some twenty pages devoted largely to special formulae for the different forms of gout, with remarks as to their applicability to the different varieties of the disease. Most of the formulae bear special titles, apparently to lend the weight of a famous name to the virtues of the prescription itself, something as in these modern days we speak of "Coxe's Hive Syrup," "Dover's Powder," "Tully's Powder," etc. Thus we read of the "_Pilulae artheticae Salernitorum_," the "_Cathapcie Alexandrine_," the "_Oxymel Juliani_" the "_Pilulae Arabice_," the "_Pulvis Petrocelli_," the "_Oleum benedictum_," the "_Pilulae Johannicii_," etc. It is important, too, to remark that the active ingredient of very many of these formulae is the root called hermodactyl, believed by the majority of our botanists to be the _colchicum autumnale_. Gilbert's discussion of gout closes with a short and characteristic chapter entitled "_Emperica_," in which he remarks: "Although I perhaps demean myself somewhat in making any reference to empirical remedies, yet it is well to write them in a new book, that the work may not be lacking in what the ancients (_antiqui_) have said on the subject. Accordingly I quote the words of Torror. If you cut off the foot of a green frog and bind it upon the foot of a gouty patient for three days, he will be cured, provided you place the right foot of the frog upon the right foot of the patient, and vice versa. Funcius, also, who wrote a book on stones, said that if a magnet was bound upon the foot of a gouty patient, he is cured. Another philosopher also declared that if you take the heel-bon
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