Thus have I enumerated the principal remedies for curing and preventing the gout. Most of them are to be met with in books of medicine, but they have been administered by physicians, or taken by patients with so little regard to the different states of the system, that they have in many instances done more harm than good. Solomon places all wisdom, in the management of human affairs, in finding out the proper times for performing certain actions. Skill in medicine, consists in an eminent degree in timing remedies. There is a time to bleed, and a time to withhold the lancet. There is a time to give physic, and a time to trust to the operations of nature. There is a time to eat meat, and there is a time to abstain from it. There is a time to give tonic medicines, and a time to refrain from them. In a word, the cure of the gout depends wholly upon two things, viz. _proper_ remedies, in their proper _times_, and _places_. I shall take leave of this disease, by comparing it to a deep and dreary cave in a new country, in which ferocious beasts and venomous reptiles, with numerous ghosts and hobgoblins, are said to reside. The neighbours point at the entrance of this cave with horror, and tell of the many ravages that have been committed upon their domestic animals, by the cruel tenants which inhabit it. At length a school-boy, careless of his safety, ventures to enter this subterraneous cavern, when! to his great delight, he finds nothing in it but the same kind of stones and water he left behind him upon the surface of the earth. In like manner, I have found no other principles necessary to explain the cause of the gout, and no other remedies necessary to cure it, than such as are admitted in explaining the causes, and in prescribing for the most simple and common diseases. OBSERVATIONS UPON THE NATURE AND CURE OF THE _HYDROPHOBIA_. In entering upon the consideration of this formidable disease, I feel myself under an involuntary impression, somewhat like that which was produced by the order the king of Syria gave to his captains when he was conducting them to battle: "Fight not with small or great, save only with the king of Israel[74]." In whatever light we contemplate the hydrophobia, it may be considered as pre-eminent in power and mortality, over all other diseases. [74] II. Chron. xviii. 30. It is now many years since the distress and horror excited by it, both in patients and their friends, led me with great solicitude to investigate its nature. I have at length satisfied myself with a theory of it, which, I hope, will lead to a rational and successful mode of treating it.