The other class of diseases to which the heart is liable are those which affect the tissue or substance of the organ itself, and are known as structural or organic diseases; all of them are, consequently, highly dangerous and often mortal maladies, and are called:—1. Inflammation, chronic and acute, of the bag of the heart—Pericarditis. 2. Of the substance of the heart—Carditis. 3. Hypertrophy, or enlargement of the heart, either of the whole organ or a part, and frequently accompanied with ossification, softening, or dilatation, sometimes regarded as a distinct disease. 4. Atrophy, or wasting of the heart, a species of emaciation of the organ by which the heart of a full-grown man or woman becomes as reduced as that of a child—in other words, less than half its natural dimensions—and its texture growing so attenuated as to be as thin as tissue or bank paper. Nearly all these affections of the heart, however distressing their symptoms may be, almost always, when not the result of structural mischief, proceed from a faulty state of the digestive organs, and are frequently entirely cured by an assafœtida pill taken two or three times a week at bed-time, and a little burnt soda and rhubarb in the morning; and it is only when pain and great oppression occur that recourse need be had to ether, opium, or anti-spasmodics. GOUT. The chain of symptoms which give rise to those general and local affections, which are professionally denominated gout, proceed from some constitutional disturbance, of the nature of which medical science is yet completely ignorant. The symptoms have hitherto been regarded as the disease, and it has been found, that whenever these have been duly developed and have passed away, the system, as if relieved of some acrid poison, has recovered its elasticity and tone; leaving the patient in the enjoyment of a state of health superior to that usually possessed. Gout appears to be a state of diseased action, gradually vitiating the humours of the body, and accumulating a morbid condition of the system, till the impaired or overcharged organs becoming unable to perform their functions, that disturbance in the physical economy takes place known to us as gout, that is, the symptoms, which indicate the first of the three varieties into which the disease is divided, namely, the acute: the second is, when these symptoms suddenly cease in the part where they commenced, and fly to some internal organ, when it is called retrocedent; and the third, when the system becomes habituated to the malady, which, though mitigated as respects suffering, continues in a permanent but subdued force, when it is called chronic gout. Gout is usually divided into four species or distinctive forms, as— 1. _Regular gout_, attended with violent inflammation of the joints, enduring for several days, and then receding gradually, with swelling, itching, and disquamation or peeling off of the cuticle.