Take “gout in the stomach,” to which organ, in the days of the Regency, it appeared to fly on the slightest pretext, a “vulgar belly-ache taking rank by courtesy” as such, before Sir Thomas Watson pricked the bubble of these pretentious ailments by his suggestion that “gout” (so called) in the stomach sometimes turned out, under the test of an emetic, to be nothing more than _pork_ in the stomach. A caustic stricture, but doubtless well merited. For the symptoms held typical of “gout in the stomach” are but those of _gastric irritation_, with nothing to suggest that they are of “gouty” origin. Again, as Brinton in his classic exposure of this clinical myth observes, some of the recorded instances doubtless derive their melodramatic aspects from unrecognised _biliary colic_. As he rightly says, some of the cases instanced by Scudamore were jaundiced _usque ad unguem_. Gallstones, too, are among the many derivatives of the so-called “gouty” habit. The age incidence of both disorders is identical, whence doubtless the conception of the relationship. But what of the abdominal catastrophes attached to _gallstones_, all wholly unguessed at in those days? What, too, of the unrecognised and doubtless frequently coincident _renal_ disease, with its menace of _uræmia_—pain, vomiting and prostration, not to mention Buzzard’s reflection that some cases of gout in the stomach were probably referable to gastric “crises,” _i.e._, _tabes dorsalis_? If we recall that none of these sources of fallacy—and we have named but the more common—were eliminated, and also the absence of any _anatomical_ proof _post mortem_ of gastric lesions, one may well ask with Brinton, “Is there any ‘gout in the stomach’ left after the subtraction of these various affections?” Personally, I can say with Brinton that “I know of no such case; have never seen one; have never been able to get trustworthy evidence of one from some of the most accomplished physicians living, or from the best records.” Reverting to the _cardiac_ and _cerebral_ phenomena that have sometimes followed the _retrocession_ of acute gout, the same difficulties confront us. The conclusion that they are examples of _retrocedent gout_ is drawn from premises which really do not support it. Strictly speaking, there is nought but the _time relation_ to go upon, and the laconic comment “Non sequitur” is obvious. To continue, the more we know of the causes and effects of disease, the less relevant becomes the time relation, and the nearer do our conceptions of cause and effect approximate to the more truly valid conception of ground and consequence. But what _grounds_ have we for assuming that the anginal, the syncopal attack, or the apoplexy is the _consequence_ of gout, that it is exclusively due to the _materies morbi_ of gout?