Gout: The Patrician Malady

Roy Porter, G S Rousseau

Yale University Press, $25, pp393

ISBN 0 300073860

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Gout has been recognised since antiquity, and descriptions of the disease date back to the Babylonian empire. It was certainly well described by Hippocrates. Called the “king of diseases” and the “disease of kings,” gout is more the “disease of plenty.” In Gout Porter and Rousseau track medical thinking about the disease across the centuries, from Hippocrates and Galen to Paracelsus, Harvey, Archibald Garrod in the Victorian era, and beyond. They discuss the cultural, moral, religious, and personal qualities associated with the condition, examining social commentary, personal writings, cartoons …