GOUSSET, TnosrAs MARIE JOSEPH, 1792-1860; b. France, of a peasant family. At the age of 25 lie was made a priest, and soon became professor of moral theology in Besancon, holding the place 17 years, In 1825 he published a work, much in advance of most thinkers, on the relations of the church to usury. In 1886 he was appointed archbishop of Rheims, and in 1850 became a senator of France and a cardinal. His chief works are on dogmatic and moral theology. • GOUT (Fr. goutte, from Lat. gutta, a drop), a meditcval term of uncertain date, derived from the lrumora1 pathology (see RHEUMATISM), indicating a well-known form of dis ease, which occurs for the most part iu persons of more or less luxurious habits, and past the middle period of life. The acute attack of gout begins most commonly by a painful swelling of the ball of the great toe or of the instep, sometimes of the ankle or knee; much more rarely, it attacks both lower limbs at once; and more rarely still, it seizes first upon some other part of the body, the foot being either not attacked at all, or becoming involved at a later period. In the great majority of cases, the foot is not only the first part attacked, but the principal seat of the disease throughout; according to Scudamore, indeed, this is the order of events in not much less than four-fifths of the cases. In exceptional instances, the ankle, knee, hand, elbow, etc., are attacked at first; now and then, the disease smolders in the system in the form of disorders of the digestive or nervous functions, or oppression of the circulation for some considerable time before it takes the form of "regular" gout—that is, of an acute attack, or fit, of gout in the foot. The name podagra (Gr. pod, foot, and agra, seizure) indicates the leading character of the disease as apprehended by all antiquity; andsthe very numerous references to the disorder so called, not only in the medical writings of Hippocrates, Galen, Aretteus, Cilius Aurelianus, and the later Greek physicians, but iu such purely literary works as those of Lucian, Senech, Ovid, init.! Pliny, show not only the fre quency, but the notoriety of the disease. The allusions. indeed, are of a kind which give ample proof that the essential characters of gout have not been changed by the lapse of centuries; it is caricatured by Lucian in his burlesque of Tragopodagra in language quite applicable to the disease as now observed; while the connection of it with the advance of luxury in Rome is recognized by Seneca (Epist. 95) in the remark that in his day even the women had become gouty, thus setting at naught the authority of physicians, which had asserted the little liability of women to gout. Pliny likewise (book 20, chap. 10) remarks upon the increase of gout, even within his own time, not to go back to that of their fathers and grandfathers; he is of opinion, further, that the disease must have been imported; for if it had been native in Italy, it would surely have had a Latin name. Ovid and Lucian represent gout as mostly incurable by meth.
tine; from this view of it. Pliny dissents. The list of quack remedies given by Lucian is one of the most curious relics of antiquity.
In the present day, gout is observed to prevail wherever there is an upper class having abundant means of self-indulgence, and living without regard to the primeval law of hunxnity, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat hreaa." The directness, however, with which gout can be traced, in particular cases, to its predisposing causes is very various; *lid in many instances a well-marked hereditary tendency to the dis ease may be observed, which even a very active and temperate life can seturely over come; while, on the other hand, the most gross forms of excess may be practiced for a whole lifetime without incurring the gouty penalty. It is difficult to explain these variations; but they leave unaffected the general principle, that gout is a disease espe cially of the wealthy, and most of all of - those who have little physical exertion, and give great scope to the oodily appetites. The prevention and cure, accordingly, have been at all times recognized as being mainly founded on temperance, combined with the cultivation of active and regular habits as to exercise. Many amusing stories are told having this moral, and showing how gout has been cured by the opportune occur rence of calamities which have created the necessity for labor, and removed the means of self-indulgence. With a few special exceptions, indeed, it may be said that the laboring class, and especially those that labor in the open air, are almost if not alto gether free from this disease. Those, again, that labor much NA t 11 the mind, not being subject either to great privations, or to the restraint of unusually abstemious habits of life, are remarkably subject to gout; the more so if their bodily and mental constitution has been originally robust, and fitted by nature for a degree of activity which the arti ficial necessities of fashion or of occupation have kept within too narrow limits. Hence, the well-known saying of Sydenham, that gout is almost the only disease of which it can be said that it " destroys more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple." And in this manner, accordingly (he adds), there have lived and died "great kings, princes, generals, admirals, philosophers, and others like these not a few." Guut is, therefore, the counterpoise in the scales of fortune to many worldly advantages; the poor and needy have it not, but suffer from their own peculiar calamities; the-favorites of fortune are exempt from many privations, but this very exemption paves the way for the gout; whereby even in this world Dives suffers as well as Lazarus, aud some times, it may be, learns the lesson of his suffering. Such is the sense, though not the exact words, in which, nearly two hundred years ago, Sydenham expressed the convic tions of a lifetime on this subjept.