Recently (well, since last week) I've been involved in a new exciting medical emergency (or hypochondriac episode, depends who I'm talking to). I've developed a strange pain in my big toe on my left foot. It doesn't seem to be from an injury or anything like that, so Dr. Google suggested it may be gout! The Disease of Kings and King of Diseases as it was affectionately called. (That's morbus dominorum et dominus morborum for y'all latin folk.)
Such titles notwithstanding, it's quite an interesting one, gout. I'm not going to go into the minutiae of symptoms & prognoses for sufferers (not sure I'm one anyway), but it just struck me as quite fitting that a disease which mainly affected those able to eat, drink and not work (or not die young because of a flu), has received so much attention in literature and vernacular culture. I suppose it should not strike me as strange in a society which spent $400 million on a novel erectile disfunction drug (Yes, vitamin V) in the first 3 months after its launch. (Alison, K. (2000), The economics of Viagra, Health Affairs, 19 (2): 147-157). I could do a bit of research to see how much we spend on treating malaria or just malnutrition, but I think it will depress me too much.
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