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 effects of these waters on the human organism do not cease when the
drinking and bathing are left off. They often continue for a long time,
and complete the cure which was left incomplete at the spa. It but too
frequently happens that, when patients experience no relief at medicinal
spas, they are told to hope for a cure from the _consecutive_ effects
of the waters. They are often disappointed. In respect to the Kissengen
springs, we are informed by Dr. Balling, that unless they produce the
_reaction_ already described, during the time the patient is using
them, no _consecutive_ effects are to be expected. But, on the other
hand, if the reaction clearly shews itself at the springs, considerable
consecutive effects, of a salutary nature, may be confidently looked
for—and the remainder of the cure may be safely trusted to nature at
the patient’s own home. The system of diet enjoined by the Kissengen
physicians, and Dr. Balling in particular, is nearly as rigid as at most
of the other spas, where certain doctors have hobbies which they ride to
death beyond the Rhine as well as in this country.
ORDER OF THE DAY.
At six o’clock in the morning the band marches and plays through the
middle of the town to the garden, summoning the sick to their morning
potations. “It is here,” says Dr. B. “that a most curious scene presents
itself to the musing eye. Eight hundred or a thousand invalids (for
comparatively few others go to Kissengen) are quickly assembled in the
walks of the “JARDIN DE CURE,” of all conditions and ages—the prince
by the side of the tradesman—the queen by that of the peasant girl—all
having but one object in view, the recovery of health. Nothing can be
more interesting than the general physiognomy which characterises the
whole moving mass of human beings.
The great spas present a morbid physiognomy each peculiar to
itself. Carlsbad exhibits the yellow and earthy—Ems the pallid and
hectic—Pyrmont, the pale chlorosis—the “green and yellow melancholy” of
the love-sick maiden. Kissengen has its peculiar physiognomy—but it is
a deceitful one—a countenance of morbid fulness and floridness, little
indicative of the grave maladies which lie concealed.”
This garden is of considerable extent, and contains numerous walks. Those
who like to be in the crowd may find their wishes satisfied in the middle
alleys—those who are fond of solitude, may indulge their meditations
in the remote paths. Those who are fond of comparing notes with their
brother and sister sufferers, have ample means of doing so, in this
asylum of valetudinarians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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