day.[99] A certain spring in Hungary in the county of Saros, is under the influence of the moon: since it is well known to increase with the moon’s increase, to diminish with its decrease, and to run quite dry at the great change or new moon.[100] In fine, medicinal waters were not uncommon in Palestine, the accounts of which are collected by that great master of oriental literature, Hadrian Reland.[101] [94] _Lib. iii. Cap. xxvii._ [95] _Lib. xxxi. §. 32._ [96] _Ib. §. ii._ [97] _Ib. §. 19._ [98] _De Dea Syria._ [99] _Vid. Ortelii Theatrum orbis terrarum._ [100] _Vid. Geo. Wernher. de admirandis Hungariæ aquis._ [101] _Palæstina ex monument. vet. illustr. p. 300, &c._ Nevertheless those who contend for a miracle in this place, say that there are no baths known, which can cure all distempers; nor any that retain their virtue but one single month in the year: they likewise add, that it was the action of the angel troubling this water, that gave it its sanative qualities. Those who are of a different sentiment, enumerate a number of waters, which become salutary at certain times of the year, by being then charged with metallic salts; the mud of which being brought up from the bottom, has been serviceable in many diseases. Wherefore they say, it is not just to have recourse to a supernatural power for effects, which may be produced by the ordinary course of nature. But as far as I am able to judge of these contradictory opinions, a middle way between them seems to me to come nearest the truth. For my notion of the matter is, that the water of this pool acquired its medicinal virtues from the mud settled at the bottom, which was charged with metallic salts, perhaps from sulphur, allum, or nitre. And whenever it happened that the water was troubled by any natural cause whatsoever, perhaps a subterraneous heat, or rains; these salts were raised up and mixed with it, and might well be beneficial to those, who went down into the pool, before the metallic particles subsided. Wherefore it is no wonder, that there _lay_, in the porches of this bath, which the evangelist says were five in number, _a great multitude of impotent folk waiting for the moving of the water_; and especially of such as laboured under those diseases, for which it was serviceable, as blindness, palsies, and decays. And it was very natural for every individual person to endeavour to get into it as soon as possible; for fear of being frustrated of their cure by the subsidence of the mud. Wherefore _he who first stept in_, experienced the virtue of the water.