Gout

From "My Literary Malady" by Geoff Nicholson in a recent NYT essay:

I'm sure there are as many gouty plumbers as there are gouty writers, but the suffering of the latter is more likely to be set down for posterity. The classic description of gout comes from Thomas Sydenham, writing in 1683: "The victim goes to bed and sleeps in good health. About two o'clock in the morning he is awakened by a severe pain in the great toe; more rarely in the heel, ankle or instep. The pain, which was at first moderate, becomes more intense. Now it is a violent stretching and tearing of the ligament, now it is a gnawing pain and now a pressure and tightening. So exquisite and lively meanwhile is the feeling of the part affected that it cannot bear the weight of bedclothes nor the jar of a person walking in the room." In the 18th century, James Gilray caricatured gout as a black devil gnawing at the outside of the foot. My own mental picture is of a small, hot, angry rodent inside the joint, trying to burrow its way out. If you think all this sounds exaggerated or self-dramatizing, we can safely say you are not gout-afflicted.