Political gout: dissolute patients, deceitful physicians, and other blue devils.

This essay seeks to assess the renegade Thomas Beddoes through the filter of the gout diagnosis in his time. It stretches out to cover his whole life and emphasizes the need for a broad comparative historical and biographical approach. Gout is shown to have functioned then as more than a malady; it was also part of a social code embedding class, rank, affiliation, standing and political position.