28 June 2023
The latest additions to the Heberden Library provide a variety of opinions on gout from the 17th and 18th
centuries. Discover the 5 new additions to the Heberden Library below.
Book 1
- Title: An essay on the true nature and due method of treating gout, written for the use of Richard Tennison: together with an account of the nature and quality of Bath-waters, the manner of using them, and the diseases in which they are proper; as also, of the nature and cure of most chronical distempers, not publish’d before
- Description: Cheyne, a physician and early proponent of vegetarianism, writes to a patient about the usefulness of the waters of Bath.
- Author: George Cheyne, published in London, 1738. Ninth edition
Book 2
- Cases in the Acute Rheumatism and the Gout; With Cursory Remarks, and the Method of Treatment
- Description: Six case studies examine the use of Guaiacum, a genus of flowing plant from central and south America. The plant is still used today in the stool guaiac test.
- Author: Thomas Dawson, published London, 1775. Second edition.
Book 3
- A Treatise on the gout
- Description: The author of this English translation of Traite de la goutte, Liger, was a physician to the King of France. Here, she discusses avoiding treatments during acute attacks, the benefits of exercise, and rejects the commonly used ‘milk diet’.
- Author: Charles Louis Liger an anonymous translator, published in London, 1760.
Book 4
- Title: An historical, critical, and practical treatise of the gout, shewing, not only the uncertainty, but danger and presumption of all philosophical systems and hypotheses in physick: as also, what a physician ought to know, in regard to those diseases which precede the gout, are complicated with it, and lastly, in what diseases the gout terminates from improper treatment; with a dedicatory discourse concerning the present state of physick in Europe
- Description: Financed through subscription, here Alexander Pope’s physician looked at the balancing of ‘heat’.
- Author: Thomas Thompson, published London, 1740.
Book 5
- Title: Miscellanea … An essay upon the cure of the gout by Moxa
- Description: This book contains two collections of essays, chronicling the author’s experience of gout and their use of ‘moxibustion’ for treatment.
- Author: William Temple, published London, 1693 and 1696
The books are available to visit at BSR’s Heberden Library collection held at the Royal College of Physicians.