It is worthy of notice, that if these remedies are omitted, all the premonitory symptoms that have been mentioned disappear as soon as the arthritic fever is formed, just as lassitude and chilliness yield to a paroxysm of fever from other causes. II. Of the remedies that are proper in cases of great morbid action in the blood-vessels and viscera. I shall begin this head by repudiating the notion of a specific cure for the gout existing in any single article of the materia medica. Every attempt to cure it by elixirs, diet-drinks, pills, or boluses, which were intended to act singly on the system, has been as unsuccessful as the attempts to cure the whooping cough by spells, or tricks of legerdemain. The first remedy that I shall mention for reducing great morbid action in the blood-vessels and viscera, is _blood-letting_. I was first taught the safety of this remedy in the gout by reading the works of Dr. Lister, above thirty years ago, and I have used it ever since with great advantage. It has the sanction of Dr. Hoffman, Dr. Cullen, and many others of the first names in medicine in its favour. The usual objections to bleeding as a remedy, have been urged with more success in the gout, than in any other disease. It has been forbidden, because the gout is said to be a disease of debility. This is an error. Debility is not a disease. It is only its predisposing cause. Disease is preternatural strength in the state of the system now under consideration, occasioned by the abstraction of excitement from one part, and the accumulation of it in another part of the body. Every argument in favour of bleeding in a pleurisy applies in the present instance, for they both depend upon the same kind of morbid action in the blood-vessels. Bleeding acts moreover alike in both cases by abstracting the excess of excitement from the blood-vessels, and restoring its natural and healthy equality to every part of the system. It has been further said, that bleeding disposes to more frequent returns of the gout. This objection to the lancet has been urged by Dr. Sydenham, who was misled in his opinion of it, by his theory of the disease being the offspring of morbific matter. The assertion is unfounded, for bleeding in a fit of the gout has no such effect, provided the remedies to be mentioned hereafter are used to prevent it. But a fit of the gout is not singular in its disposition to recur after being once cured. The rheumatism, the pleurisy, and the intermitting fever are all equally disposed to return when persons are exposed to their remote and exciting causes, and yet we do not upon this account consider them as incurable diseases, nor do we abstain from the usual remedies which cure them.