Aulus Cornelius Celsus (30 A.D.) described the correlation between
podagra and excessive alcohol intake; he also described the association between gout and the renal disease.
nee facit hoc vitio, sed corpora foeda
podagra et senis amplexus culta puella fugit.
Uncommon symptoms included tophi, swelling,
podagra, and redness, which are cardinal signs of gouty arthritis.
(21) During the Renaissance, 'gout' (gotta or
podagra) was the name given to virtually any disease of the joints or extremities, (22) especially when accompanied by swelling.
'Themes and Composition in Lucian's
Podagra', RhM 122, 149-154.
The first toe is the most commonly involved joint (gouty pain in the great toe is called
podagra).
Palmer and Klaus Speckenbach, Trdume and Krauter (Cologne and Vienna: Bohlau, 1990), and Barbara Gartner, Johannes Widmanns 'Behende vnd hubsche Rechenung' Die Textsorte 'Rechenbuch' in der Fruhen Neuzeit (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2000); much early modern literature on gout is listed in my article 'Minerva and das
Podagra', in Dialoge: Sprachliche Kommunikation in and zwischen Texten im deutschen Mittelalter, ed.
The first written reference to gout dates to 2600 BC, when Egyptians first described
podagra, or gouty arthritis, usually of the big toe, and today understood as uric acid arthropathy.