DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRANKLIN AND THE GOUT

[Guest guest]

Very Cool !!!! Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

herbal remedies, " Ian Shillington N.D. "

<Dr.IanShillington@G...> wrote:

> 1780 Dialogue Between Ben Franklin And The Gout

> by Benjamin Franklin

> Source: World Library

>

> FRANKLIN. Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel

sufferings?

>

> GOUT. Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and too much

indulged those legs of yours in their indolence.

>

> FRANKLIN. Who is it that accuses me?

>

> GOUT. It is I, even I, the Gout.

>

> FRANKLIN. What! my enemy in person?

>

> GOUT. No, not your enemy.

>

> FRANKLIN. I repeat it; my enemy; for you would not only torment my

body to death, but ruin my good name; you reproach me as a glutton

and a tippler; now all the world, that knows me, will allow that I am

neither the one nor the other.

>

> GOUT. The world may think as it pleases; it is always very

complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well

know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man who takes a

reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for another, who

never takes any.

>

> FRANKLIN. I take-Eh! Oh!-as much exercise-Eh!-as I can, Madam Gout.

You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it would seem,

Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not

altogether my own fault.

>

> GOUT. Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away;

your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary

one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active.

You ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that, play at

billiards. But let us examine your course of life. While the

mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do?

Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary-

exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers,

which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate

breakfast, four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered

toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the

most easily digested. Immediately afterward you sit down to write at

your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business.

Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise.

But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary

condition. But what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the

beautiful gardens of those friends, with whom you have dined, would

be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess,

where you are found engaged for two or three hours! This is your

perpetual recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a

sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the

fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the

circulation and obstruct internal secretions. Wrapt in the

speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution.

What can be expected from such a course of living but a body replete

with stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous

maladies, if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by

agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them? If it

was in some nook or alley in Paris, deprived of walks, that you

played awhile at chess after dinner, this might be excusable; but the

same taste prevails with you in Passy, Auteuil, Montmartre, or Sanoy,

places where there are the finest gardens and walks, a pure air,

beautiful women, and most agreeable and instructive conversation; all

which you might enjoy by frequenting the walks. But these are

rejected for this abominable game of chess. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin!

But amidst my instructions, I had almost forgot to administer my

wholesome corrections; so take that twinge,-and that.

>

> FRANKLIN. Oh! Eh! Oh! Ohhh! As much instruction as you please,

Madam Gout, and as many reproaches; but pray, Madam, a truce with

your corrections!

>

> GOUT. No, Sir, no,-I will not abate a particle of what is so much

for your good,-therefore-

>

> FRANKLIN. Oh! Ehhh!-It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when

I do very often, going out to dine and returning in my carriage.

>

> GOUT. That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most slight and

insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on

springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds

of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given

by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with

cold feet, in an hour's time you will be in a glow all over; ride on

horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours'

round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have

mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to

warm your feet by a fire. Flatter yourself then no longer, that half

an hour's airing in your carriage deserves the name of exereise.

Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given

to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious

and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper use of yours.

Would you know how they forward the circulation of your fluids, in

the very action of transporting you from place to place; observe when

you walk, that all your weight is alternately thrown from one leg to

the other; this occasions a great pressure on the vessels of the

foot, and repels their contents; when relieved, by the weight being

thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the first are allowed to

replenish, and, by a return of this weight, this repulsion again

succeeds, thus accelerating the circulation of the blood. The heat

produced in any given time depends on the degree of this

acceleration; the fluids are shaken, the humors attenuated, the

secretions facilitated, and all goes well; the cheeks are ruddy, and

health is established. Behold your fair friend at Auteuil;* *Madame

Helvetias} a lady who received from bounteous nature more really

useful science, than half a dozen such pretenders to philosophy as

you have been able to extract from all your books. When she honors

you with a visit, it is on foot. She walks all hours of the day, and

leaves indolence, and its concomitant maladies, to be endured by her

horses. In this see at once the preservative of her health and

personal charms. But when you go to Auteuil, you must have your

carriage, though it is no farther from Passy to Auteuil than from

Auteuil to Passy.

>

> FRANKLIN. Your reasonings grow very tiresome.

>

> GOUT. I stand corrected. I will be silent and continue my office;

take that, and that.

>

> FRANKLIN. Oh I Ohh! Talk on, I pray you!

>

> GOUT. No, no; I have a good number of twinges for you to- night,

and you may be sure of some more to-morrow.

>

> FRANKLIN. What, with such a fever! I shall go distracted. Oh! Eh!

Can no one bear it for me?

>

> GOUT. Ask that of your horses; they have served you faithfully.

>

> FRANKLIN. How can you so cruelly sport with my torments?

>

> GOUT. Sport! I am very serious. I have here a list of offences

against your own health distinctly written, and can justify every

stroke inflicted on you.

>

> FRANKLIN. Read it then.

>

> GOUT. It is too long a detail; but I will briefly mention some

particulars.

>

> FRANKLIN. Proceed. I am all attention.

>

> GOUT. Do you remember how often you have promised yourself, the

following morning, a walk in the grove of Boulogne, in the garden de

la Muette, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise,

alleging, at one time it was too cold, at another too warm, too

windy, too moist, or what else you pleased; when in truth it was too

nothing but your insuperable love of ease?

>

> FRANKLIN. That I confess may have happened occasionally, probably

ten times in a year.

>

> GOUT. Your confession is very far short of the truth; the gross

amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times.

>

> FRANKLIN. Is it possible?

>

> GOUT. So possible, that it is fact; you may rely on the accuracy of

my statement. You know Mr. Brillon's gardens, and what fine walks

they contain; you know the handsome flight of an hundred steps, which

lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the

practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week, after dinner,

and it is a maxim of your own, that " a man may take as much exercise

in walking a mile, up and down stairs, as in ten on level ground. "

What an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in both

these ways! Did you embrace it, and how often?

>

> FRANKLIN. I cannot immediately answer that question.

>

> GOUT. I will do it for you; not once.

>

> FRANKLIN. Not once?

>

> GOUT. Even so. During the summer you went there at six o'clock. You

found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, eager

to walk with you, and entertain you with their agreeable

conversation; and what has been your choice? Why to sit on the

terrace, satisfying yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your

eye over the beauties of the garden below, without taking one step to

descend and walkabout in them. On the contrary, you call for tea and

the chess-board; and lo! you are occupied in your seat till nine

o'clock, and that besides two hours' play after dinner; and then,

instead of walking home, which would have bestirred you a little, you

step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose that all this

carelessness can be reconcilable with health, without my

interposition!

> FRANKLIN. I am convinced now of the justness of poor Richard's

remark, that " Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think

for. "

>

> GOUT. So it is. You philosophers are sages in your maxims, and

fools in your conduct.

>

> FRANKLIN. But do you charge, among my crimes, that I return in a

carriage from Mr. Brillon's?

>

> GOUT. Certainly; for having been seated all the while, you cannot

object the fatigue of the day, and cannot want, therefore, the relief

of a carriage.

>

> FRANKLIN. What, then, would you have me do with my carriage?

>

> GOUT. Burn it, if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it

once in this way; or, if you dislike that proposal, here's another

for you; observe the poor peasants, who work in the vineyards and

grounds about the villages of Passy, Auteuil, Chaillot, & c.; you may

find every day, among these deserving creatures, four or five old men

and women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years and too long

and too great labor. After a most fatiguing day, these people have to

trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachman to set

them down. This is an act that will be good for your soul; and, at

the same time, after your visit to the Brillons, if you return on

foot, that will be good for your body.

>

> FRANKLIN. Ah! how tiresome you are!

>

> GOUT. Well, then, to my office; it should not be forgotten that I

am your physician. There.

>

> FRANKLIN. Ohhh! what a devil of a physician!

>

> GOUT. How ungrateful you are to say so! Is it not I who, in the

character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy

and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago,

but for me.

>

> FRANKLIN. I submit, and thank you for the past, but entreat the

discontinuance of your visits for the future; for, in my mind, one

had better die than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint,

that I have also not been unfriendly to you. I never feed physician

or quack of any kind, to enter the list against you; if, then, you do

not leave me to my repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too.

>

> GOUT. I can scarcely acknowledge that as any objection. As to

quacks, I despise them; they may kill you indeed, but cannot injure

me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced that the

gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and

wherefore cure a remedy?-but to our business,-there.

>

> FRANKLIN. Oh! Oh!-for Heaven's sake leave me; and I promise

faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily,

and live temperately.

>

> GOUT. I know you too well. You promise fair; but after a few months

of good health, you will return to your old habits; your fine

promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds.

Let us then finish the account, and I will go. But I leave you with

an assurance of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my

object is your good, and you are sensible now that I am your real

friend.

> Benjamin Franklin