Most authors have considered these excesses as one of the predisposing causes of gout. Hippocrates, probably, entertained the same idea, if we may judge from these two aphorisms:--“_Eunuchi neque podagra laborant, neque caluescunt. Puer podagra non tentatur ante venereorum usum._” Sydenham also regarded excessive indulgence in venereal pleasures as tending to produce gout. Guilbert remarks, that even hereditary gout is neither a disease of infancy nor of youth: he admits, however, that venereal excesses may produce it before the time it generally appears. Roche exclaims against this opinion: he thinks that venereal excesses can only cause attacks of gout. He says-- “What influence have masturbation and venereal excesses in producing gout? According to men of the world, and even to some physicians, they are the most fruitful source of this infirmity: and yet on what facts does this opinion rest? On this, that several gouty people have been great libertines in their youth. But how many chaste persons, and how many prelates, too, are attacked by this cruel disease? On the other hand, are there not as many, and even more libertines among the poor, than among the rich? and yet, in general, they are not attacked by the gout. Finally, the shameful vice of onanism is observed most frequently among the young; and we have already said that gout is a disease of manhood and old age. Hence, it is wrong to attribute to this order of causes a part of the influence which it has not, and cannot have, in producing gout. Here, doubtless, has been committed the error which has been several times pointed out: attacks of gout have frequently been known to supervene after venereal excesses or masturbation; and it has been concluded that these causes concur powerfully in producing the disease itself. Good living and gormandizing are, we repeat, the real--the only sources of gout: sobriety, frugality, are the best preservatives from it.”