“From the top of my head to the end of my toes I am cruelly tortured by agony’s woes, Filled up with black blood and billious humor, My flesh seems to pulsate like a sore tumor. The eating and gnawing I can’t describe well; My tendons all ache with the twinges of Hell, While through my fingers pains cut like a knife And add to my torment! I’m weary of life.” Meantime our patient does not appear to have a robust faith in the humoral theories of his physician, for he adds, in accursing the malady that has ruined his health, that it permits him no repose: “Mal que jamais l’homme n’a pu comprendre Qui le plus sage induirait a se pendre.” That is to say, that the doctors do not understand how to manage the disease, a common idea among patients who are not cured of their malady as speedily as they desire. In one of the scenes the gout addresses a pompous eulogy on its power over humanity, and inveighs against those physicians who discover a new specific against gout every day. This list of remedies for the disease is appalling; we cull but a few to satisfy the reader’s curiosity: “One advises flea wort and a parsley pill, One eats fruit at morning, when with gout he’s ill, One chews leaves of lettuce, one takes wild purslain; Another smells pond lilies, when he doth complain. Some remedies most curious are for gout deemed good, Such are herbs and simples to purify the blood; Angelica and gentian, the iris and green thyme, Along with fresh culled myrtle will cure it all the time; Hyssop and lavender, cherry and water cress, Basil, hops and anise, all make the pain grow less. Lentills, sage and savory, when the bowels they unbind, And the marvelous merchoracan that comes from far off Ind. There’s the beauteous laurel leaf that crowneth bard and king, Privet and cardamoms, whose praise we often sing. And there’s the sleeping poppy, what peace within it resides, Culled by the Turkish houris in the garden Hesperides; There’s the soothing comfrey and the glorious hoarhound, And the magic betal nut, in tropic isles that’s found; There’s the fragrant _fleur de lis_, when with pain you cry, There’s the odorous sheep dung, given always on the sly. Some dote on peach blossoms; some on saffron red, Some like hyoscyamus mixed with piss-a-bed; There’s bread crumbs and fennel mixed with young carrots Pounded in a mortar along with eschalots. There are some who use an ointment this disease to heal, Made of rinds of citron and golden orange peel, With frankencense and veratria root, to ease gouty pain, Applied to the great toes on the leaves of green plantain. There’s saltpeter ointment too, when to the foot applied It makes the patient furious wroth, or else he’s terrified, Giving the gout new twinges, and the sufferer spasms Only eased by eggs and flour in a soft cataplasm.