The selection of the preparation of colchicum in the treatment of an acute paroxysm is a matter of individual experience and preference. The acetous extract and the wine of the seeds are most commonly used, and many practitioners are not scrupulous in prescribing the proprietary preparations of Reynolds, Laville, and Blair. The wine of colchicum may be given in doses varying from 20 to 40 minims, alone or combined with Epsom salts in drachm doses, with small quantities of opium, every six or eight hours. Under this medication the pain, tenderness, and swelling rapidly abate, and sometimes with an abruptness that is magical. As soon as the acute symptoms subside, the colchicum should be continued in smaller and less frequent doses until the fever and local tenderness subside. The use of quinia with small doses of colocynth after the colchicum has been discontinued helps to re-establish the strength and regulate the digestive functions. The patient should always be warned against the possible demoralizing effects of a speedy recovery from a serious disease. Recurrence after the colchicum treatment is certainly more common than after the expectant method, but this should not be ascribed so much to a defective cure as to the temptation which the antidote offers to trifling with the poison. The accidents which have been ascribed to colchicum through its causing heart-failure are probably to be explained by its injudicious administration in large doses where acute gout is complicated with cardiac or renal degeneration.