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
It is chiefly, however, in gout, rheumatism, tic-douloureux, paralytic
debility without preceding apoplexy or affection of the head, scrofula,
cutaneous eruptions, stiffness and contractions of joints, and old sores,
that the baths of Marienbad are recommended as essential auxiliaries to
the waters internally. The baths are generally used at a temperature of
94° to 98°, and at any time of the day except when digestion is going on
after dinner.
MUD-BATHS.
These are in great requisition at Marienbad. The peat bog is found near
the spa. It is of a very dark brown colour—friable when dried, and
unctuous to the feel when wetted. It is here, as elsewhere, the product
of vegetable matters decomposed by water, and highly impregnated with
carbonic acid gas and sulphuretted hydrogen, which gases are disengaged
in prodigious quantities. Much sulphur is found in this earth, together
with various mineral salts, as hydro-chlorate of soda, sulphate of
soda—sulphates of lime and magnesia—carbonate of iron—silex—alum—bitumen,
&c.
Besides the general effects of hot, warm, and tepid baths of mineral
water, the mud-baths exhibit effects peculiar to themselves. They may be
taken at a higher temperature than water-baths, without inconvenience.
They are never employed cold. They excite the skin much more than
the liquid baths,—cause a greater degree of redness—bring out more
eruptions—and stimulate the nerves of the surface, as well as the
vessels. They are employed by the Marienbad physicians in all those cases
where the mineral-water baths are used. They are preferred, however,
to the latter, in all those maladies where the natural and salutary
crisis takes place chiefly through the excretories of the surface, and
by determination to the joints, as in gout; and in those cases where the
disease is attributed to checked perspiration. The mud-baths are much
employed by Dr. Heidler, Dr. Herzig, and others, as local applications in
various local maladies, as, for example, in swellings and stiffness of
the joints—old wounds—ulcers—neuralgic affections, &c.
As the stratum of mud in contact with the body soon loses some of its
caloric, it is proper and even necessary, to keep moving about in the
bath, and using friction with the hands as well as motion with the limbs.
The fluid bath, which is placed at the side of the mud-bath, loses
temperature also, while the bather is in the latter, and as it is often a
moveable tub, warm water cannot be always added to it—therefore it should
be two or three degrees higher than usual when operations are commencing.
No time should be spent in the washing-bath longer than is necessary for
cleaning the surface of the body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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