The first written description of gout dates from 2,600 BC, when Egyptians noted gouty arthritis of the big toe. Around 400 BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates also commented on gout. Writing ca. 30 AD, Aulus Cornelius Celsus appeared to recognize many of the features of gout, including its link with a urinary solute, late onset in women, linkage with alcohol, and perhaps even prevention by dairy products:
“Again thick urine, the sediment from which is white, indicates that pain and disease are to be apprehended in the region of joints or viscera. … Joint troubles in the hands and feet are very frequent and persistent, such as occur in cases of podagra and cheiragra. These seldom attack eunuchs or boys before coition with a woman, or women except those in whom the menses have become suppressed. Upon the commencement of pain, blood should be let; for when this is carried out at once in the first stages it ensures health, often for a year, sometimes for always. Some also, when they have washed themselves out by drinking asses’ milk, evade this disease in perpetuity; some have obtained lifelong security by refraining from wine, mead and venery for a whole year; indeed this course should be adopted especially after the primary attack, even although it has subsided.
Around 200 AD, the Roman gladiatorial surgeon Galen described gout as a discharge of the four humors of the body in unbalanced amounts into the joints. The word “gout” was initially used by Randolphus of Bocking, around 1200 AD. It is derived from the Latin word “gutta”, meaning “a drop” (of liquid).
The first written description of gout dates from 2,600 BC, when Egyptians noted gouty arthritis of the big toe.
The Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek described the microscopic appearance of urate crystals in 1679.
In 1848 English physician Alfred Baring Garrod realised that excess uric acid in the blood was the cause of gout.
Dr. Thomas Sydenham’s 1683 description of an acute gout attack (translated from the Latin in 1850) is still referenced today. Dr. Sydeham was himself a gout sufferer.
The Tyrannosaurus rex specimen known as “Sue” appears to have suffered from gout.
Historical treatments for gout include gin and numerous medications that have since been found to be not effective. Sodium bicarbonate is a traditional remedy,thought to work by raising blood pH (lowering blood acidity). However, the added sodium may be inappropriate for some people.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek described the microscopic appearance of uric acid crystals in 1679.
The victim goes to bed and sleeps in good health. About two o’clock in the morning, he is awakened by a severe pain in the great toe; more rarely in the heel, ankle or instep. This pain is like that of a dislocation, and yet the parts feel as if cold water were poured over them. Then follows chills and shiver and a little fever. The pain which at first moderate becomes more intense. After a time this comes to full height, accommodating itself to the bones and ligaments of the tarsus and metatarsus. Now it is a violent stretching and tearing of the ligaments-now it is a gnawing pain and now a pressure and tightening. So exquisite and lively meanwhile is the feeling of the part affected, that it cannot bear the weight of bedclothes nor the jar of a person walking in the room.
Source: Kelley’s Textbook of Rheumatology
A 1799 cartoon depicting gout.
Today
We are out of the dark ages and into a more enlightened age that allows us to look at history,the history of gout is riddled with indicators of how to prevent gout and by refining this knowledge to our day to day living including gout diets and gout remedies that this modern world has come up with, will all help towards a gout cure
