St. Anthony's Fire and Gout

Let's return to some of the illnesses John Wesley addressed.


Descriptions of ergot poisoning
Wattisham, Suffolk, 1762-63
(Wellcome Library)

St. Anthony's Fire
We now know that St. Anthony's Fire is really an inflammation of the skin, bad enough to be gangrenous, and caused by eating the ergot fungus.  The fungus grew on rye.  Its poisoning was a dominant illness in Europe between 900 and 1700 (Madden, Cheap, 211-12).  John described it as "a Fever attended with a red and painful swelling, full of pimples, which afterwards turn into small blisters, on the face or some other part of the body." (Physic, 25.)  It was thought to be caused by extremes in temperatures, alcohol, and sexual passions (Madden, 211).  John recommended [remember he numbers each treatment in Primitive Physic]:

29.  Take a glass of tar-water warm in bed, every hour, washing the part with the same.
- Tar-water is made thus. -- Put a gallon of cold water to a quart of Norway tar.  Stir them together with a flat stick for five or six minutes.  After it has stood covered for three days, pour off the water clear, bottle and cork it.
30.  Or take a decoction of elder leaves, as a sweat; applying to the part a cloth dipt in lime-water, mixed with a little camphorated spirit of wine.
- Lime-water is made thus. -- Infuse a pound of good quick lime in six quarts of spring-water for twenty-four hours.  Decant and keep it for use.
31.  Or, take two or three gentle purges [vomits]. -- No acute Fever bears repeated purges better than this, especially when it affects the head;  mean time boil a handful of Sage, two handfuls of elder leaves (or bark) and an ounce of Alum in two quarts of forge water, to a pint.  Wash with this every night. [He then refers the reader to Dr. Tissot's book on health care.]
32.  If the pulse be low, and the spirits sunk, nourishing broths and a little negus [wine with hot water, lemon juice, spices and sugar] may be given to advantage.

Elder flowers and elder
Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret
15 October 2012

33.  Or let three drachms [3/8 of an ounce] of nitre [salt peter*] be dissolved in as much elder-flower tea, as the patient can drink in twenty-four hours.  If the disease attacks the head, bleeding is necessary.  Dressing the inflammation with greasy ointments, salves, and. [etc?] is very improper.
34.  Bathing the feet and legs in warm water is serviceable, and often relieves the patient much.
- In Scotland the common people cover the part with a Linen cloth covered with meal." (Wesley, Physic, 25-26.)

The Gout in the Foot or Hand
377.  Apply a raw lean beef-steak.  Change it once in twelve hours, till cured.  Tried [when John or one of his acquaintances had tried and found a treatment successful, John would label it as "tried."].

"Punch [Alcohol] Cures the Gout, .. the Colic, ... and the Tisick [tuberculosis]"
etching by James Gillray, 1799
(Wellcome Library)

The Gout in any Limb
378.  Rub the part with warm treacle [molasses*], and then bind on a flannel smeared therewith.  Repeat this, if need be, once in twelve hours.
- This has cured an inveterate Gout in thirty-six hours.
379.  Or, drink a pint of strong infusion of elder-buds dry or green, morning and evening.  This has cured inveterate Gouts.
380.  Or, at six in the evening, undress and wrap yourself up in blankets.  Then put your legs up to the knees in water, as hot as you can bear it.  As it cools, let hot water be poured in, so as to keep you in a strong sweat till ten.  Then go into a bed well warmed and sweat till morning. --- I have known this cure an inveterate Gout, in a person above sixty, who lived eleven years after. --- The very matter of the Gout is frequently destroyed by a steady use of Mynsicht's Elixir of Vitriol." (Wesley, Physic, 69-70.)

Gout is caused by too much uric acid in the blood, which causes deposits of uric acid crystals in the joints, legs and arms, causing swelling (see picture above).  Even now it is thought to be triggered by rich foods, meat, and alcohol.  It is considered to be a disease of a highly civilized lifestyle, and has a genetic/hereditary component.  Wesley believed its discomfort could be decreased if it was hereditary, and cured if it was not.  Both John and his mother had it (Madden, Cheap, 232-33, 270).

"Gout" in premodern times included not only what we label gout today, but the symptoms could also be caused by lead poisoning and by rheumatoid arthritis.  One of the ways to get rid of the uric acid and the lead is to increase urination.  Therefore, hot bathing would stimulate urination of toxic chemicals and also relax arthritic inflammation (Root-Bernstein, Robert and Root-Bernstein, Michele.  Honey, Mud, Maggots and Other Medical Marvels: The Science Behind Folk Remedies and Old Wives' Tales (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 55).  Elder bud tea is helpful because it not only is a diuretic which makes people excrete urine, but it also has a tranquilizing effect (Madden, Cheap, 233).

*(Johnson)