CHAP. III. Of the manifest causes of the Gout
* 1.1ALthough these things may be true which we have delivered of the occult cause of the Gout▪ yet there be and are vulgarly assigned others▪ of which a probable reason may be rendred, wherein this malignity, whereof we have spoke, lies hid and is seated. There∣fore as of many other diseases, so also of the Gout there are assigned three causes; that is, the primitive, antecedent, and conjunct: the primitive is twofold, one drawn from their first original and their mother's womb, which happen's to such as are generated of Goutie parents, chiefly if whilst they were conceived, this gouty matter did actually abound and fall upon the joynts, For the seed fall's from all the parts of the Body, as saith Hippocrates, and Aristotle affirm's lib. de gen. animal.* 1.2 Yet this causes not an inevitable necessity of haveing the Gout, for as many begot of sound and healthful parents are taken by the Gout by their proper and 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 laudable temper of the womb; whereof the one by the mixture, and the other by the gen∣tle heat, may amend and correct the faults of the paternal 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 shewed by Avicen. Another pri∣mitive cause is from inordinate diet, especially in the use of meat, drink, exercise and Ve∣nery.* 1.3 Lastly, by unprofitable humors which are generated and heaped up in the body, which in process of time acquire a virulent malignity; for these fill the head with vapors raised up from them, when the membranes, nerves and tendons, and consequently the joynts become more lax and weak. They offend in feeding who eat much meat, and of sundry kinds at the same meal, who drink strong w••ne without any mixture, who sleep presently after meat, and which use not moderate exercises; for hence a plentitude, an obstruction of the vessels, cruditites, the in∣crease of excrements, especially serous; Which if they flow down unto the joynts, without doubt they cause this disease; for the joynts are weak 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 original: by accident, 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 humors, which by an unseasonable motion are sent into the sinews and joynts. Through this occasion old men, be∣cause their native heat is the more weak, are commonly troubled with the Gout. Besides also the suppression of excrements accustomed to be avoided at certain times, as the courses, hemor∣hoids, vomit scouring,* 1.4 causeth this disease. Hence it is, that in the opinion of Hippocrates: A woman is not troubled with the Gout, unless her courses fail her. They are in the same case who have old and running ulcers suddenly healed, or varices cut and healed, unless by a strict course of diet they hinder the generation and increase of accustomed excrements. Also those which recover of great and long diseases, unless they be fully and perfectly purged, either by nature or art; these humors falling into the joynts, which are the reliques of the disease, make them to become gouty: and thus much for the primitive cause. The internal or antecedent cause is the abundance of humors,* 1.5 the largeness of the vessels and passages which run to the joynts, the strength of the amandating bowels, the loosness, softness, and imbecilitie of the reviving joynts. The conjunct cause is the humor, it self repact and shut up in the capacities and cavities of the joynts.* 1.6 Now the unprofitable humor, on every side sent down 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,* 1.7 it cannot be easily digested and resolved. This humor then causeth pain by reason of distention or solution of continuity, distemper; and besides the virulency and malig∣nity which it requires. But it savors of the nature sometimes of one, somtimes of more humors; whence the Gout is either phlegmous, erysipilatous, oedematous, or mix't. The concourse of flatulencies, together with the flowing down humors, and as it were tumult by the hinderance of