= Solution
\b[Translation.] <Gout>, then, does not readily become continuous, but sometimes leaves a long interval; for it is slight. Indeed, a man suffering from <gout> won a footrace at the Olympic games during a remission. Men are more readily affected, but less severely than women; women are affected less frequently than men, but more severely. For what is neither customary nor natural to a person, if it gains the upper hand through compulsion, produces a more violently oppressive affliction. As regards age, it generally begins from thirty-five years onwards, but earlier or later according to each person's constitution and way of life. The <pains> are terrible, and their accompaniments worse than the <pains>: <faintness>, inability to move when touched, <loss of appetite>, <thirst> and <sleeplessness>. But if they recover, on the one hand, as though they had escaped death, they live without restraint: uncontrolled, frank, cheerful, receptive to gifts and luxurious in their way of life; on the other, as though they would escape death once again, they make abundant use of the life they presently have. In many people <gout> has settled into <dropsy>, and sometimes into <asthma>; and there is no escaping the succession of these conditions.
\b[The passage describes an ancient conception of <gout>, not a modern diagnostic definition.] Its source is <Aretaeus of Cappadocia>'s <On the Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases by Aretaeus of Cappadocia>, II.12, on arthritic and sciatic affections. Here \i[ποδάγρη] is rendered <gout>, with the more specific name <podagra> referring to the <foot>. The conspicuous clinical observation is intermittency: the account contrasts severe attacks with intervals in which someone might run competitively. The Olympic story is the author's illustration, not an independently verified case history. <Examination papers for the Degree of Bachelor of Medicine by the University of Oxford (1864–1867)>[PDF volume p. 73, complete Greek extract and its source attribution]{ref}
Several details matter for a faithful rendering. \i[λεπτὴ γάρ] says “for it is slight”, despite the later description of severe <pain>; it should be understood in the context of the preceding intermittent course, rather than turned into a claim that every attack is mild. \i[δίαιτα] includes the whole way of life, not simply <food>. \i[ἁπλοί] means frank or straightforward here. The printed \i[δωροδόκοι] literally concerns receiving gifts, which is why the translation says “receptive to gifts”; silently replacing that with “generous” would reverse the ordinary direction of the word. The closing \i[ὡς ἐκ θανάτου αὖθις ἐσόμενοι] is rendered as an expectation of escaping death again: the printed clause contains no negative. The comparison edition punctuates the symptom list so that touch provokes faintness; the Oxford punctuation instead leaves “when touched” next to immobility, as reflected above. <On the Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases by Aretaeus of Cappadocia>[II.12, final paragraphs: intermittency, the symptom list, dispositions following recovery and the closing prognosis]{ref} <Greek vocabulary at Perseus>[δωροδόκος: taking presents; lexical support for the literal direction of the printed word]{ref}
\b[The assertions about women's greater severity, unusual conditions necessarily being more violent, and the patient's moral character are historical claims, not established consequences of <gout>.] Modern <gout> is an inflammatory <arthritis> caused by deposits of <urate crystals> in <anatomical joints>. It is more common in men, and risk in women increases after <menopause>; that does not establish the text's proposed universal severity rule or its portrait of indulgent behaviour. Diagnosis concerns clinical findings and, where needed, examination of a <synovial fluid> sample, rather than moral judgements about the sufferer. <Gout by the NHS>[Who gets gout; cause in uric-acid crystals; diagnostic testing including fluid taken from an affected joint]{ref}
Likewise, <dropsy> is a historical term for abnormal fluid accumulation, overlapping with <oedema>; it does not name one specific modern <disease>. The ancient \i[ἄσθμα] can describe difficult breathing and should not automatically be equated with present-day <asthma>. The translation retains the historical word, but the closing progression from <gout> to <dropsy> or <asthma>, with no escape, is the author's prognosis, not a current inevitable natural history. Modern diagnostic categories must therefore be kept separate from the ancient list. <On the Causes and Signs of Chronic Diseases by Aretaeus of Cappadocia>[II.1, dropsy as a systemic condition rather than merely one collection of fluid; II.12, final sentence of the assigned passage]{ref}
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