to gouty persons; which notion they have very readily and generally received, not so much perhaps from a reasonable persuasion of its truth, as from a desire that it should be true, because they love wine.  Let them consider, that a free use of vinous and spirituous liquors peculiarly hurts the stomach and organs of digestion, and that the gout is bred and fostered by those who indulge themselves in drinking much wine; while the poorer part of mankind, who can get very little stronger than water to drink, have better appetites than wine-drinkers, and better digestions, and are far less subject to arthritic complaints.  The most perfect cures, of which I have been a witness, have been effected by a total abstinence from spirits, and wine, and flesh, which in two or three instances hath restored the helpless and miserable patients from a state worse than death, to active and comfortable life:  But I have seen too few examples of the success of this method, to be confident or satisfied of its general utility.”  The language of the missionary account is very similar and equally encouraging.  “On the discontinuance of the practice of drinking the yava, the skin of the leprous persons soon becomes smooth and clear, and they grow fat, though few are found who deny themselves the use of it.”  If drugs could remove either of these calamities, it is certain there would be no difficulty in getting them to be swallowed; for most men, it seems, prefer any sorts of bitter and nauseating substances, though taken by the pound, and without intermission, to the salutary restraints on appetite and vicious propensities, which common sense as well as common experience so authoritatively enjoin.  It is as unjust to censure physicians for failing to cure the gout, as it would be to censure a surgeon for the lameness or deformity of the leg of a man, who, while under treatment for a fracture, should make daily attempts to dance or ride on horseback.—­E.]

Where intemperance produces no diseases, there will be no physicians by profession; yet where there is sufferance, there will always be attempts to relieve; and where the cause of the mischief and the remedy are alike unknown, these will naturally be directed by superstition:  Thus it happens, that in this country, and in all others which are not further injured by luxury, or improved by knowledge, the management of the sick falls to the lot of the priest.  The method of cure that is practised by the priests of Otaheite, consists chiefly of prayers and ceremonies.  When he visits his patient he repeats certain sentences, which appear to be set forms contrived for the occasion, and at the same time plaits the leaves of the cocoa-nut into different figures very neatly; some of these he fastens to the fingers and toes of the sick, and often leaves behind him a few branches of the the specia populnea, which they call E’midho:  These ceremonies are repeated till the patient recovers or dies.  If he recovers, they say the remedies cured him, if he dies, they say the disease was incurable, in which perhaps they do not much differ from the custom of other countries.[27]