Having used the mud-baths both at Franzensbad and Marienbad, and accurately watched their effects on my own person, I can aver that I perceived no difference, either in sensible properties or physiological results, between the mud-baths of the two places. I always felt more exhilarated through the day, when I used the mud, than when I took the common mineral-water bath. GAS-BATHS. At Marienbad, as at Franzensbad, the carbonic acid gas rises from the earth in such abundance, that it is only necessary to inclose a piece of ground and form a reservoir, when the deadly mephitic gas collects in such quantities as would destroy the whole population of those spas in a few minutes! But as the most potent poisons have been converted into the most efficient remedies, so has this deleterious emanation from the bowels of the earth, been made an instrument for restoring various lost powers in the human frame. The application of this gas is only of modern date. The first notice I have seen is in the Dict. des Sciences Medicales, 1812. Since then Dr. Heidler, Dr. De Carro, and others have published on this subject. The gas-bath was first used at Marienbad about twenty years ago, on the following occasion. Dr. Struve, of Dresden, had been using the waters and baths of Marienbad for a painful affection of the left thigh and leg, which prevented him from walking without crutches, and, on any little exertion, caused the most excruciating pain. A number of lymphatic glands were swelled in the course of the vessels of that limb, and the vessels themselves were enlarged and inflamed, though the limb was emaciated. He had a gorged liver and hæmorrhoids. He exposed the afflicted member daily to the action of the carbonic acid gas, which always floats on the surface of the Marienbrunn; and the following were his words:—“I soon felt an agreeable warmth creep up the limb exposed to the gas, which went on increasing, accompanied by a sense of formication (creeping of ants) over the skin. After half an hour’s application, on the first trial, I removed from the Marienbrunn, by the aid of my servant and crutches; but my astonishment was great, when I found that I could put my foot to the ground with increased power, and that the painful titillation soon subsided. In the course of a few days the power of the limb was so far augmented that I was able to walk without crutches or even a stick. I continued, however, the Kreuzbrunn water internally—the mud-poultices to the limb—and the gas-bath for three weeks, when the cure was complete and permanent.”[64]