Johannes Dolæus - Dolæus upon the cure of the gout by milk-diet

To the Right Honourable Marmaduke Coghill , Esq; L. L. D. Judge of the Prerogative Court, one of the Commissioners of the Revenue, Provice-Chancellour of the University, and one of His Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council.

SIR ,

It cannot be thought too great a Strain of Compliment, to dedicate the following Papers to you, since they were undertaken with an Intention of serving you and some of your Friends, and are published at their Request. I am in no great Pain about their Success, since you have approved my Part therein. Popular Applause is often lost in the two quick or eager pursuit of it, and Censure is too great a Mark of Eminence for me to be afraid of; so that if my Friends approve my Conduct, I shall be satisfied.

It may be thought Vanity in me to name you, among my Friends, but I have received too many Favours from you, in Instances of some Consequence to me, not to reckon you so, which I must be very insensible not to be proud of, and ungrateful not to acknowledge; and to which the utmost Services in my Power are but a very inadequate Return.

It is not to be expected that any Thing I can say should add to that Esteem and Respect you deservedly hold among all that know you, and therefore I forbear to enter into any Parts of your Character, or your Conduct in publick and private Life. The great Stations you so justly fill, give you Opportunities of doing kind Actions out of the Power of more private Persons, and of satisfying your Inclinations to Benevolence, which are apt rather to out-run your Power than fall short of it, and seem bounded by nothing else: But I am only in this Place to present you the following Papers, with my Wishes that they may contribute to your Health or your Entertainment, and to acknowledge myself

Some Gentlemen of very great Worth, whose Desires I could not resist, engaged me in the Translation of the following Treatise of Dolaeus ; they thought it might be of Use to Persons afflicted with the Gout, to have an easier Way of coming at the Facts contained therein, by naturalizing it into our Language; to which I can only add my good Wishes, as I have done my Endeavours in this Publication; for its Usefulness must be judged of by the Event.

In Examining Dolaeus his Work, Many Things occurred to me not so agreeable to my Way of thinking about these Matters, as I could have wished consistent with my publishing thereof, without taking Notice of them; some necessary Things I apprehended to be omitted, some Appearances very odly accounted for, some Directions and Medicines too loosely and too generally recommended; and indeed, through the whole, too little Care taken of nicely distinguishing Constitutions and Habits, to which Directions of this Kind should be specifically adapted, and never applied but upon the most skillful and mature Advice that can be had. The too much Encouragement that hath been given to valetudinary People, by publishing such loose and undetermined Directions, have made them think themselves judges of many Things of great Consequence to their Lives and Health, for which they are in no Sort qualified, and is generally attended with many great and often fatal Inconveniencies: And because they don’t always find Relief by applying to Physicians, from such Mischiefs as their own Errors, and the Neglect of timely Advice have brought upon them, they are apt to conceive a bad Opinion both of the Profession and its Professors.

The History of Cures, recited by Dolaeus , I take to be the most valuable Part of his Book; the Appearances that happen therein, may, I think, be accounted for upon other and more philosophical Principles, than the Author hath adapted thereto; upon this, and the foregoing Accounts, I had determined to have added Notes at such particular Places as were proper for me to animadvert upon; but I found they swelled to too great a Bulk, and would have too much interrupted the Author in his own Way of telling his own Story; which occasioned the changing thereof into the Form they now appear in, of a preliminary Essay.

The principal Hints in the Essay are taken from some loose Papers I have had long by me upon those Subjects; many of them were collected upwards of fifteen Years ago, when I was a very young Adventurer in Physick; so that I don’t pretend to call them all my own, yet I have had long and frequent Occasion to see the Truth of them confirmed in many Instances, and the Pleasure to find them embraced and applied, by some of the greatest Masters of our Profession both at Home and Abroad. It is a great Loss to Observations of this Kind, that the Motions and Quantities of Matter are so far beyond our Senses, as to be incapable of being reduced to any certain Measures, which prevents that strict Mathematical Certainty we have arrived at in the Knowledge of the Properties of Motion in larger Bodies, more within the Compass of our Senses; the Gravitation of the heavenly Bodies, and of Bodies upon our Earth, to their respective Centres, have been reduced to certain Measure; and that there are mutual, attractive and repellent Powers, which act in certain Distances and Positions, annexed to the smallest Particles of Matter, as the immediate Cause of several natural Appearances, is highly resonable to believe; but whatever Boasts have been made by some of the modern Philosophers of accounting for those Appearances upon this Principle, they have amounted to no more than Evidences of its Existence; for the Laws of its Action are not yet sufficiently known for such Purposes as I have been speaking of; so that we must content ourselves with the History of Nature, in its Appearances, which under the same Circumstances will ever be the same, or at least as long as we shall have Occasion to observe them, let their Causes be what they will.

I have avoided the Quotation of Authors through the whole, as much as possible, because I have observed that whatever Appearance of honesty there may be in attributing to every Author the Hints he may have furnished, yet, a Multiplicity of Quotations is generally imputed rather to the Vanity of appearing Book learned, than any thing else, except to skreen Defects under greater Names, by the Publisher’s not making himself by this Means accountable for what he says; the first I think I have disclaimed, by declining the Occasion, and the latter could be of no Use to me, because I hold myself accountable in this Publication only for the Truth of the Facts, and the Honesty of the Intention, which is to contribute what lies in my small Sphere to the good of Mankind, my Friends, and my Profession.

It is very well known in the History of Physick, that very great Changes have been brought about in the human Body by the Force of Diet, especially in chronical Cases, where the Application of Medicines hath proved ineffectual. Chronical Distempers, as they are longer in coming to their Period, so they occasion a more universal bad Habit of Body; and where there is a pretty universal Depravation either of the Solids or Fluids of a human Body, or of both, it is not to be expected that sudden Changes can happen to Advantage: As the Progress is slow, and the Changes from a good to a bad State imperceptible, and by Degrees, the Changes to a good State must be so too. In acute Diseases indeed Medicines are more immediately necessary, because the Changes being quick and violent, immediate and sometimes violent Remedies become necessary; there being no Time to wait the slow and ordinary, tho’ more certain, Methods of Change by the Alimentary Powers.