Many things will indeed shorten a fit of the gout, and some will drive it off altogether: but nothing has yet been found which will do this with safety to the patient. In pain we eagerly grasp at any thing that promises immediate ease, and even hazard life itself for a temporary relief. This is the true reason why so many infallible remedies have been proposed for the gout, and why such numbers have lost their lives by the use of them. It would be as prudent to stop the small-pox from rising, and to drive them into the blood, as to attempt to repel the gouty matter after it has been thrown upon the extremities. The latter is as much an effort of Nature to free herself from an offending cause as the former, and ought equally to be promoted. When the pain however is very great, and the patient is restless, thirty or forty drops of laudanum, more or less, according to the violence of the symptoms, may be taken at bed-time. This will ease the pain, procure rest, promote perspiration, and forward the crisis of the disease. After the fit is over, the patient ought to take a gentle dose or two of the bitter tincture of rhubarb, or some other warm stomachic purge. He should also drink a weak infusion of stomachic bitters in small wine or ale, as the Peruvian bark, with cinnamon, Virginian snake-root, and orange-peel. The diet at this time should be light, but nourishing, and gentle exercise ought to be taken on horseback, or in a carriage. Out of the fit, it is in the patient’s power to do many things towards preventing a return of the disorder, or rendering the fit, if it should return, less severe. This however is not to be attempted by medicine. I have frequently known the gout kept off for several years by the Peruvian bark and other astringent medicines; but in all the cases where I had occasion to see this tried, the persons died suddenly, and, to all appearance, for want of a regular fit of the gout. One would be apt, from hence, to conclude, that a fit of the gout, to some constitutions, in the decline of life, is rather salutary than hurtful. Though it may be dangerous to stop a fit of the gout by medicine, yet if the constitution can be so changed by diet and exercise, as to lessen or totally prevent its return, there certainly can be no danger in following such a course. It is well known that the whole habit may be so altered by a proper regimen, as quite to eradicate this disease; and those only who have sufficient resolution to persist in such a course have reason to expect a cure.