results. Since, therefore, the material of this variety of arthetica,
in which no swelling is present, is formed of grosser and harder
substance and is found in the vicinity of hard and cold localities, it
is dissolved slowly and the disease is not cured until this solution
takes place. That form of the disease, however, in which there is
swelling from a subtile and liquid material deposited in the soft
parts is the more quickly cured. Hence swelling is the best sign
of curability. This is most evidently true in podagra, unless the
_materies morbi_, by reason of its scarcity, produces no enlargement
of the affected part."

Quoting the words of Rhazes, Gilbert tells us that the _materies
morbi_ of gout is, for the most part, crude and bloody phlegm. Rarely
is it bilious, and still more rarely, melancholic. If, however, it is
compounded, it consists chiefly of bile mixed with a subtile phlegm,
and more rarely, of phlegm mixed with black bile (_melancholia_),
occasionally of black bile mixed with blood. The mixture of black bile
and blood or bile is very rare, and still rarer a mixture of all the
humors according to their proportion in the body.

If the color of the affected part is red, it indicates that the
_materies morbi_ is sanguineous; if greenish-yellow (_citrinus_), that
it is bilious; if whiter than the general color of the body, that the
materies is a subtile phlegm. If the color shades away into black, it
does not signify necessarily that the materies is simply black bile,
for such a color occurs at the close of acute abscesses, or from
strangulation of the blood. But if, together with the black color, we
find the tissues cold and no increase of heat in the affected part,
this indicates that the _materies_ is black bile.