CHAP. VII. By what signs we may understand this or that humor to accompany the gouty malignity.
YOu may give a guess hereat by the patients age, temper, season of the year, condition of the country where he lives, his diet and condition of life, the increase of the pain in the morning, noon, evening or night, by the propriety of the beating, pricking, sharp or dull pain; by numness, as in a melancholy gout or itching; as in that which is caused by tough phlegm, by the sensible appearance of the part in shape and colour (as for example sake) in a phlegmatick Gout, the colour of the affected part is very little changed from its sef, and the neighbouring well parts, in a sanguine Gout it look's red, in a cholerick it is fiery or pale, in a melancholy livid or blackish, by the heat and bigness which is greater in a sanguine and phlegmati••k then in the rest, by the change: and lastly: by things helping and hurting. And there be some, who for the knowledge of these differences, wish us to view the patients urine, and feel their pulse, and consider these excrements, which in each particular nature, are accustomed to a∣bound or flow, and are now suddenly and unaccustomarily supprest. Fo•• hence may bee taken the signs of the dominion of this or that humor. But a more ample knowledg of these things may be drawn from the humors predominant in each person, and the signs of tumors formerly de∣livered. Onely this is to be noted by the way, that the gout which is caused by melancholy, is rare to be found.