If any object that gouty Persons, in the Beginning of the Diet, find
their Stomach and Limbs weakned by the Milk, so that they have need of
Stomachick and other strengthening Medicines, let it be remembred that
the Glands of the Stomach and Bowels in gouty Persons, that furnish
the Stomachick and intestinal Juices, are obstructed and furred with a
viscid kind of Matter, so that only the more subtile and liquid Fluids
can enter their Pores; hence the watry Part of the Milk, with very few
oily nutritious Particles, enter those Pores and Canals, so that the
Chyle becomes too watry, not being sufficiently impregnated with a
proper Quantity of oily Particles. This Chyle not being sufficiently
stored with nutritious Particles, being delivered into the Blood,
occasions a Languor and Weakness, while the thicker Parts of the Milk
go off with the Excrement. But after a while, when the watry Parts
of the Milk have frequently entered the Mass of the Blood, and have
resolved, imbibed and inverted the corrosive Salts that coagulate the
Humours, and expelled them by Perspiration or Urine; then by Degrees,
those Humours that are separated in the Glands, and serve to the
Concoction and Digestion of the Aliment, as the Spittle, the Juices
of the Stomach and Bowels, the Bile, the pancreatick Juice, become
thinner, and the Canals and Pores of those Glands are rendred fit, not
only to receive the watry Parts of the Milk, but the oily nutritious
Parts also, and of forming them into good and laudable Chyle. The
Reason why gouty People using their ordinary Aliment, retain more
Strength and Vigour, is this, not only the Pores of the Glands of the
Stomach and Bowels are by long use more apt to admit Particles from
their ordinary Food, but its Parts also are more thick and heavy, so
that the chylous Part is protruded by the Weight of the superincumbent
Particles. To this concurrs a particular Acrimony, by Means whereof
the Coats of the Stomach are vellicated, and exert a greater Force in
separating the Chyle, whereas Milk which presses more gently, does
not so easily enter Pores stuffed with viscid Humours, but rather
insinuates itself by Degrees in those Canals where it can find Passage.
If the Tone of the Bowels be in a natural State, and the first Passages
be not loaded with acid and viscid Humours, Milk from a natural
Affinity, is more easily converted into Chyle, and nourishes and
strengthens the Body more than any other Food, which takes more Time
in its Digestion, especially if some fine unfermented Wheaten Bread
be taken along with it; for by this Means the Parts of the Chyle are
rendred more heavy, and easily enter the lacteal Vessels, communicate
a solid Nourishment to the Body, and the Strength thereof is mightily
restored, without the least Hazard of any Damage.