I have known several instances in which art, and I have heard and read of others in which accidental suffering from abstinence, pain, and terror have been the happy means of overcoming a predisposition to the gout. A gentleman from one of the West-India islands, who had been for many years afflicted with the gout, was perfectly cured of it by living a year or two upon the temperate diet of the jail in this city, into which he was thrown for debt by one of his creditors. A large hæmorrhage from the foot, inflamed and swelled by the gout, accidentally produced by a penknife which fell upon it, effected in an Irish gentleman a lasting cure of the disease. Hildanus mentions the history of a gentleman, whom he knew intimately, who was radically cured of a gout with which he had been long afflicted, by the extreme bodily pain he suffered innocently from torture in the canton of Berne. He lived to be an old man, and ever afterwards enjoyed good health[69]. The following letter from my brother contains the history of a case in which terror suddenly eradicated the gout from the system. [69] Observat. Chirurg. Cent. 1. Obs. 79. "_Reading_, _July 27th, 1797_. "DEAR BROTHER, "WHEN I had the pleasure of seeing you last week, I mentioned an extraordinary cure of the gout in this town, by means of a _fright_. In compliance with your request, I now send an exact narration of the facts. "Peter Fether, the person cured, is now alive, a householder in Reading, seventy-three years of age, a native of Germany, and a very hearty man. The first fit of the gout he ever had, was about the year 1773; and from that time till 1785, he had a regular attack in the spring of every year. His feet, hands, and elbows were much swollen and inflamed; the fits lasted long, and were excruciating. In particular, the last fit in 1785 was so severe, as to induce an apprehension, that it would inevitably carry him off, when he was suddenly relieved by the following accident.