But for our encouragement it may be observed that not always does gout carry with it such a terrible Nemesis. “Gout is the disease of those who _will_ have it,” said a wise physician, and though the inbred gouty tendency may be so strong as to cast defiance at abstinence, yet it is by no means always so. A man may inherit gout, but he need not foster it by self-indulgence. Much less need he, as so often happens, acquire it by depraved habits of life. In no disease do sobriety and virtuous living ensure so great a reward. As Sir Thomas Watson long since said to those inheriting this unwelcome legacy: “Let the son of a rich and gouty nobleman change places with the son of a farm servant, and earn his temperate meal by the daily sweat of his brow, and the chance of his being visited with gout will be very small.” “O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint Agricolas!” _Georg._, ii., 458. GROWING INFREQUENCY AND ATTENUATION OF GOUT So accurate and graphic were the clinical pictures of gout depicted by the ancient physicians that there is no doubt the gout of to-day conforms to the primitive type as met with among the Greeks and Romans. This certainly as regards the _arthritic_ phenomena of the disease; for in those remote ages little or no account seems to have been taken of its _irregular_ or _ab-articular_ manifestations. While disregard of the latter group renders more credible their claims as to the widespread prevalence of the affection, nevertheless, I think there can be no doubt that the frequency of _gout_ amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans was probably over-estimated. Can it be questioned that a large percentage of the cases of gout in those bygone times consisted of undifferentiated _infective_ forms of _arthritis_. _Syphilis_ and _gonorrhœa_ must have existed then as now, and their _specific_ forms of _arthritis_, how easily confused with “rich man’s gout!” Surely too, they, like ourselves, must have suffered with states of _oral sepsis_, _pyorrhœa alveolaris_, etc., not to speak of _infective disorders_, with their correlated _arthritides_. In short, the _differentiation_ of arthritic disorders was then hardly in its infancy, and it is in light of this disability that we must appraise their clearly extravagant assertions as to the widespread ravages of gout in their day.