Whatever may _have_ been the reputation of the Baden waters, taken internally, I apprehend that their fame is not very great in the present day. On several successive mornings, between five and eight o’clock, at the Ursprung, I never could muster more than 130 bibbers—many of whom appeared to have been attracted to the Paleotechnicon from curiosity rather than in search of health. Except occasionally a fashionable lady’s-maid, or governess, no English were seen at the spring. The waters being led, however, into all the principal hotels, where there are baignoires in abundance, the number of bathers outstrip very considerably the number of bibbers. Although the waters of Baden are neither so potent when drunk, nor so stimulant when bathed in, as those of Wisbaden and many other places, yet they manage to do a fair proportion of the annual mischief occasioned by hot mineral springs in general. Thermal spas and quack doctors, indeed, have more good luck than usually falls to the lot of men and things. They completely reverse the order of events in the moral world. Their good actions are graven on _brass_—their evil deeds are written in _water_. Unless some illustrious character receive his quietus in a hot bath—as the Duke of Nassau did at Kissengen— “Abstulit clarum cita mors Achillem”— we seldom hear a word about the inferior souls who are deprived of their terrestrial tenements by the boiling Kochbrunnen, Ursprung, or Sprudel. And, when a great man actually falls a sacrifice, sufficient mischief is done before his death, by his example and recommendation. It is well known that the Duke of Nassau’s preference of the Kissengen waters to those of his own Wisbaden, drew many illustrious patients to the former springs, who would have been contented with the latter. That the hot mineral baths produce a powerful effect even in health, and still more in disease, we have ample proofs. We need only take the testimony of my friend Dr. Granville himself, who will not be suspected of any prejudice or timidity in respect to these agents. “One of the first effects of the hot water bath at Baden (and I may say the same of Toplitz, Carlsbad, Wisbaden, &c.) produced on me, was an almost irresistible inclination to fall asleep. To resist this is of the utmost consequence.” “The operation of bathing in water endowed with much power, from heat and other circumstances, is not to be viewed lightly. Much mischief has arisen—nay, fatal results have followed, from its indiscriminate adoption. A rich merchant, who, but a few hours before, had been noticed on the public promenade after dinner, on the day after our arrival, was found dead in a bath at 8 o’clock of the same evening. A lady was pointed out to me, who had lost the use of her limbs after using three hot baths.”