Some patients take a razor and their own flesh deeply cut; The wound then duly poulticed is with meal and Cyprus nut. Some take red cabbage when other methods fail And eat it with vinegar mixed with the slime of snail; Some use biting dressings made from ugly lizards, Pounded up with doe’s hoof and weasel gizzards. Many think a certain and most efficacious cure Is a little blue stone ointment mixed with man’s ordure, And a celebrated surgeon, a knight of great renown, Used virgin urine as a cure for all the men in town. Some wear charms like foxes’ tails, or a beaver tooth; Others boil a new born caul and chew it up, forsooth,” etc., etc., _ad nauseam_. Such are a few of the drugs employed against the gout, and certainly we cannot enumerate all the remedies spoken of by this malevolent demon. The treatment of Alexander Trallian, for example, is no less odd than many of the recipes given in this poetic formulary; it was composed of myrrh, coral, cloves, rue, peony and birthwort pounded together and mixed in certain proportions, and prescribed as an antidote to the gout for the space of 365 days, in the following manner: To be taken for 100 consecutive days, and then omitted for thirty days; then taken for another 100 days, with fifteen days omission afterwards; finally, every other day for 360 days. Circumcision was also a remedy, only applicable to Christians for obvious reasons.[98] This treatment is an example of the methodical system, and “rests upon superstitious gifts,” says Sprengel. But there are some merits discoverable even in this apparent superstition, _i.e._, the great truth that the gout is a constitutional disease produced by luxury, and consequently incurable by medicines; a severe regimen being imposed, at the same time foolish prescriptions were given; it was the dieting and not the formula that made Alexander Trallian’s treatment so successful. However, it must not be forgotten that some medicines had a powerful effect in attenuating the violence of the gouty attack; it was for this reason that Cœlius Aurelianus resorted to purgatives and mineral waters; and among the drugs used by chance in the Middle Ages were found the flowers and bulbs of colchicum; the haughty Demon of Gout dared not treat this remedy with disdain. Meantime the _Gout_ addressed the following lines to the physicians and _mires_ of the age. “Gardez vous, Siriens; Menteurs magiciens, Vendeurs de theriaque, Qu’elle ne vous attaque.” To call the doctor of ancient times a “_vender of Theriacum_” was an insult to professional pride. This absurd remedy was invented by one of Nero’s slaves, and held a high place in public estimation. “It was laid down in the pharmacopœias, _ad ostentationem artis_,” says Pliny, “and enjoyed a reputation that was never justified by its thirty-six ingredients and the varied assortment of inert gums entering into its composition.”