Aristole affirmes lib. de gener. animal. Yet this causes not an inevitable necessity of having the gout, for as many begot of sound and healthfull parents are taken by the gout by their proper & primary default; so many live free from this disease, whose fathers notwithstanding were troubled therewith. It is probable that they have this benefit and priviledge by the goodnesse of their mothers seed, and the laudible temper of the womb; wherof the one by the mixture & the other by the gentle heat, may amend and correct the faults of the paternall seed; for otherwise the disease would become hereditary, and gouty persons would necessarily generate gouty; for the seed followeth the temper and complexion of the party generating, as it is shew∣ed by Avicen. Another primitive cause is from unordinate diet, especially in the use of meat, drink, exercise and Venerie. Lastly by unprofitable humours which are generated and heaped up in the body, which in processe of time acquire a virulent malignity; for these fill the head with vapours raised up from them, whence the membranes, nerves and tendons, and consequently the joynts become more laxe and weake. They offend in feeding who eat much meat, and that of sundry kindes at the same meale, who drink strong wine without any mixture, who sleep present∣ly after meat, and which use not moderate exercises; for hence a plenitude, an ob∣struction of the vessels, crudities, and the encrease of excrements, especially serous. Which if they flow downe unto the joynts, without doubt they cause this disease; for the joints are weake either by nature or accident in comparison of the other parts of the body: by nature, as if they be loose and soft from their first originall; by ac∣cident, as by a blow, fall, hard travelling, running in the sun by day, in the cold by night, racking, too frequent venery, especially suddenly after meat; for thus the heat is dissolved by reason of the dissipation of the spirits caused in the effusion of seed, whence many crude humours, which by an unseasonable motion are sent into the si∣news & joints. Through this occasion old men, because their native heat is the more weak, are commonly troubled with the gout. Besides also the suppression of excre∣ments accustomed to be avoided at certaine times, as the courses, haemorrhoides, vo∣mit, scowring, causeth this disease. Hence it is, that in the opinion of Hippocrates, A woman is not troubled with the gout, unlesse her courses faile her. They are in the same case who have old and running ulcers suddenly healed, or va••ices cut and hea∣led, unlesse by a strict course of diet they hinder the generation and increase of ac∣customed excrements. Also those which recover of great and long diseases, unlesse they be fully and perfectly purged, either by nature or art, these humours falling in∣to the joynts, which are the relicks of the disease, make them to become goutie; and thus much for the primitive cause. The internall or antecedent cause is, the abun∣dance of humours, the largenesse of the vessels and passages which run to the joynts, the strength of the amandating bowels, the loosenesse, softnesse and imbecility of the receiving joints. The conjunct cause is the humour it selfe impact and shut up in the capacities and cavities of the joynts. Now the unprofitable humour, on eve∣ry side sent downe by the strength of the expulsive faculty, sooner lingers about the joynts, for that they are of a cold nature and dense, so that once impact in that place, it cannot be easily digested and resolved. This humour then causeth paine by rea∣son of distension or solution of continnity, distemper, and besides the virulency and malignity which it acquires. But it savours of the nature somtimes of one, some∣times of more humors; whence the gout is either phlegmonous, or ••rysipilatous, oe∣dematous, or mixt. The concourse of flatulencies, together with the flowing down humours, and as it were tumult by the hinderance of transpiration, encreaseth the dolorificke distension in the membranes, tendons, ligaments and other bodies wherein the joint consists.