Pilgrimages to the Spas in Pursuit of Health and Recreation: With an inquiry into the comparative merits of different mineral waters: the maladies to which they are applicable, and those in which they are injuriousJohnson, James
Science
Pilgrimages to the Spas in Pursuit of Health and Recreation: With an inquiry into the comparative merits of different mineral waters: the maladies to which they are applicable, and those in which they are injurious
Johnson, James
Balneology; Health resorts; Mineral waters
The waters of the Maxbrunnen remain clear when heated. The others become
a little turbid by the heat. Patients are recommended not to bathe in
any of these waters for three or four days after their arrival. They
should be taken for some days internally, before the baths are used, in
order that the bowels may be free, and the secretions improved. They
ought to be employed to the point of saturation—which generally takes
place in a shorter time than by the drinking of the waters. The baths are
taken before noon, and after drinking the waters, before breakfast—or in
the evening. The baths, however, may be taken two hours after a light
breakfast—and are more agreeable to most people at this time than before
the repast. Once a day is often enough. They are generally raised to 96°
or 98° of Fahrenheit—and half an hour is the usual period of immersion.
It is prudent not to stay in more than ten or fifteen minutes at first,
and to gradually increase the period, till it comes to thirty or forty
minutes.
“Patients who are disposed to convulsions, vertigo, faintings, or fulness
about the head, should not use these baths but with extreme caution. Such
people ought to keep the head covered with cloths wet with cold water
during immersion.”[58] These baths are absolutely prejudicial, if the
patient goes in when heated, perspiring, or excited by passions of the
mind. The bather ought not to plunge at once into the bath, but first to
sponge the chest and stomach with the warm water. It is hurtful to read
in the bath, and more so, to go to sleep. On the contrary, the bather
should keep in constant motion, to use friction with his own hands over
the chest and abdomen. “If, during immersion, the patient be seized
with feverish heat, chilliness, shivering, head-ache, oppression on the
chest—or any kind of malaise, he should immediately quit the bath, and
examine whether or not the temperature has been too high or too low. He
should dress himself quickly on leaving the bath, and take some turns in
the dressing-room before going into the open air. Gentle exercise after
the bath is very beneficial.”
The point of saturation from the baths is considered by Dr. Balling as a
matter of great importance. This point is not attained till the morbific
matters are expelled from the constitution, and all the secretions
have become healthy and natural—especially those from the intestinal
canal. The time necessary for attaining this desirable condition will
be different in different constitutions—and in different diseases.
Generally speaking, it requires two weeks of the bath. After this period
the patient and physician should be on their guard, and watch well the
phenomena as they occur.
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