It is worthy of remark that, at some places where miracles are claimed to be wrought by the effect of water (as, for example, at Malvern), the water used is remarkable merely for its great purity and almost absolute freedom from mineral ingredients. It is not a little remarkable that some waters, which were formerly used almost exclusively for _bathing_, are now used almost as exclusively for drinking. Carlsbad affords an instance of this. The word _bad_, when used as an affix, generally indicates that the water is or has been used mainly for bathing. The word _brunn_, or _brunnen_, however, usually implies that the spring has been mainly employed for drinking purposes. CHAPTER IV. THE USES OF BATHS. We do not propose to enter at all fully into the question of the place which baths ought to occupy as remedies for disease; but we shall merely indicate some of the chief conditions for which bathing might reasonably be expected to be of service. It has been generally claimed for baths that they cure everything; and, in fact, the many unfounded assertions as to the remedial powers of hot and cold water, which have been made by professed hydropathists and others, have done much to bring these very useful agents into disrepute. It proved very puzzling to the acute mind of the author of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens,’ that the baths and waters which he encountered in his travels seemed capable of curing everything; and it was difficult to understand how patients whose conditions were in no way similar should apparently derive equal benefit from precisely the same treatment; and perhaps we shall not be wrong in assuming that the very healthy mode of life which is pursued by visitors to baths has much to do with the good results of treatment.