There was a powder for gout known to an earlier generation under the name of the “Portland Gout Powder;” according to the prescription given by Jourdan in the _Pharmacopée Universelle_ (1828); it consisted of: Gentian root, round birthwort root (_Aristolochia rotunda_), ground pine root (_Teucrium chamaepitys_), the tops of germander (_Teucrium chamaedrys_), and of the lesser centaury (_Erithroea centaurium_), of each equal parts to be ground separately to a fine powder and mixed; dose, half a teaspoonful. He gives of this three variants, in one of which the gentian is replaced by guaiacum. For some years past a good deal has been heard about the Pistoia gout powders. A pamphlet entitled _The antigouty powders of the R.R. Benedictine Mothers of Pistoia for the treatment of a gouty source_ (Rome, 1904) presents a curious resemblance to the advertising pamphlets issued by ordinary nostrum dealers. There is a short disquisition on gout written in very odd English, this is followed by a translation of a large number of testimonials to the virtues of the powder, and this again by the following “Warning to our Customers”: Having known that in some towns of Italy, and even in Pistoia, some antigouty drug circulates under the name of “Vegetal Antigouty Powders of the Cloister” or under other names alike, making every body trust that they come from our Monastery, we think ourselves, in duty bound, to remember to our Customers that no deposit of our Antigouty Powders is to be found neither in Pistoia nor in other towns or places in Italy or abroad, and that we have accorded to nobody the faculty of preparing or selling them. Consequently every antigouty remedy which in any way should be made known as coming from this Monastery, must be considered as a product of vulgar falsification and adulteration. The label on some boxes of the powder states that it is based on gentian, and on Indian wood, which is one of the synonyms of guaiacum. The pamphlet, which has already been quoted, states that the powders do not contain colchicum, belladonna, or any other poisonous substance, but are a composition of medicinal grasses, none of which can ever have a pernicious effect upon the health, whatever may be the state of the person who uses it. It is asserted that “often many miraculous cures are obtained,” but it appears that the treatment must be a prolonged one, for the pamphlet further states that: When it is question of a first affection or of a light gouty attack, the treatment of a whole year without interruption can in general be sufficient; because it is necessary for the blood to stay under the action essentially depurative of the drug during four seasons. But when the illness is old, a year of treatment cannot of course be enough to extirpate entirely the distemper, and the use of the drug must be protracted till necessary.