OH MY FOOT!

Podagra affects one to two percent of the population, according to medical statistics. Which is incredibly disappointing! Formerly it was the king of diseases and the disease of kings, afflicting only blue-bloods and geniuses.
Now it has become 'democratic'.

Far be it from me to deny the hoi-polloi an equal chance at misery, but it would be vastly preferable if they suffered from something more pedestrian.

A proletarian affliction.

When it comes to agony, I am a snob.
My ailments are elite and unusual.
Everybody else's, common.

My metatarsal-phalangeal joint is special.
It is the most upper-class English part of me.
Likely a right bastard, maybe even Anglo-Norman.

[SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_gout_james_gillray.jpg]


Gout is often caused by diets rich in booze, meat, fructose-sweetened crap, and certain seafoods - particularly shellfish and crustaceans.
Conversely, coffee and tea, dairy, and vitamin C decrease incidence.
What this means is that I should rigorously minimize red meat, avoid sweet beverages, and abstain almost entirely from oysters.
Upping the stimulant intake is probably recommended.
Okay.
Can do.
Gonna spend the rest of my life wired to the eye-brows.
Bring on the cheesy substances!
Fromage.


THOMAS SYDENHAM IS A YENTA!

In the past, severely disapproving Protestant physicians (see person mentioned above) ascribed gout to dissolution and excessive venery.
Given that they also blamed the latter for blindness, deafness, idiocy, incontinence, distemper, whooping cough, and pregnancy, it seems likely that what they were expressing was sheer jealousy.
And rightly so!

I am by no means dissolute. My life exemplifies restraint.
And habits almost Spartan in their cleanliness.

And as far as the venery is concerned, there is none. Not a smidgen. Venery has NOT been part of the programme in so long that if it cropped up I might not even know what to do with it.
More's the pity and dammit!
Haven't done anything remotely venerous in years.
Noah landed the Ark more recently than I have engaged in venerosity.
Heck, given the utter void, nay, outer-space-like vacuum that represents the options for venery extant in the San Francisco social scene, where shallow superficial twats and glib sneering young consumerites pollute the discourse and frighten away virgins twixt timorous and born-again chaste, scare reasonable women into a life of nunnery, drain and discard the past-twenties (of both genders), and by their ghastly excess paint all matters sensual as irredeemably vile, depraved, disgusting, filthy, and disappointing, it would be a miracle of titanic proportion if a nice young lady ever looked at me in this town and innocently decided "hey, foxy looking middle aged gentleman trim and erect with a pleasing twinkle in his eye I need to boff him how do I attract his attention?"
Indeed.
Methinks the medical men (like Dr. Sydenham) need to stuff a sock in it.
Throbbing big toes, twitchy feet, night sweats, feverish delirium (that last is slightly exaggerated, it has not yet been that bad), and sundry other goutish symptoms are NOT caused by 'venery'.

Why, rather than being the cause, that which they blame is the cure!


I'll prove it.


In order to do so I'll need a volunteer.



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