Gout is something you get if you’re a character in a Dickens novel.
Scarlet fever, Whooping Cough, Gout; all Dickensians diseases.
All with their own ailments, the characters of his novels.
John Jasper with addiction, Ebenezer Scrooge with narcissism and schizophrenia,
Arthur Havisham with delirium tremens, Mr. Krook with dyslexia;
all with gout.
Charles Dickens had nine episodes of gout,
I’ve told you four. Here’s some more;
Miss Mowcher had dwarfism, Joe the Fat Boy had hypercapnia,
Bradley Headstone had epilepsy, and Uriah Heep had dystonia.
You may say that’s only eight,
but his own character’s fate.
The ninth was the first and it was his own.
Charles Dickens had OCD and gout in his toe bone.