Ben Franklin And The Gout

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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