“These mineral waters (internally and externally) applied to the surface—taken into the circulation—or digested in the stomach or duodenum, oppose themselves, in the living organism, to morbific matters—afterwards exciting and assisting nature to expel these morbid principles from the body. _In this case an irritation, a re-action is established throughout the whole constitution, converting chronic diseases into those of a greater or less degree of acuteness, accompanied by febrile symptoms._ This fever assumes a septenary type, lasting, sometimes one week, sometimes two. In this stage _it requires the greatest care on the part of the patient, and the greatest vigilance and skill on the part of the physician, to manage this febrile period, so as not to let it run too high, nor yet to fall short of the salutary range_. It is only in this stage, that the diseased organism perceives its malady—and it is absolutely necessary that the patient should feel ill, if he hopes to recover his health.”[56] Dr. Balling is perfectly right when he says that this febrile re-action requires the greatest skill and care. But is it not evident that among the shoals of patients who take the waters of Kissengen, or any other waters of the kind, several must experience danger, and some even fatal effects, from this re-action? We may be sure that the late Duke of Nassau had the best advice at Kissengen, and yet he lost his life by the warm bath there! The waters of Kissengen are recommended by our author with dietetic and prophylactic intentions, to prevent diseases and correct a disposition to them, as well as to remove them when fully developed. The waters of Maxbrunnen are excellent means for preserving the constitution from dispositions, or, as they are termed, predispositions to diseases, arising from original taint, or following attacks of acute inflammatory complaints. The waters of the Maxbrunnen internally, and of the Pandur in baths, have been used for many years _dietetically_ as preventive of scrofula, in those whose parents had been strumous, or who themselves shewed a tendency to it—and also of affections of the mucous membrane of the chest, and also of the abdomen. They are used habitually against disposition to venous congestion of the abdominal viscera, the prolific source of gout, hypochondriasis, hæmorrhoids, cutaneous eruptions. Among the chief symptoms of the abdominal plethora, Dr. B. adduces acidity, disagreeable taste in the mouth, uneasy digestion, tension and fulness of the hypochondria, sense of oppression at the chest, turbid urine, irregular bowels, constipation, dry skin, or malodorous perspirations, eruptions on the surface, &c. For these symptoms the Ragoczy and Pandur are reckoned heroic remedies. Among the maladies actually developed, or developing themselves, Dr. B. has arranged the following, with short remarks on each, as being peculiarly under the influence of the waters of Kissengen.