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 learned author gives a most elaborate account of almost every work
that has been published on these famous waters, since their discovery
by the Emperor Charles IV. in the sixteenth century. His book is, in
short, a catalogue raisonnée of the writings of his predecessors. The few
practical observations contained in it may be thus stated:
The medicinal powers of the Carlsbad waters are the following:
1. They invigorate the primæ viæ, and dislodge from them all impurities
and accumulations. Hence in various forms of dyspepsia, arising from
a sedentary life, from torpor of the bowels, &c. they are especially
useful; also in chronic jaundice, obstinate head-aches accompanied with
constipation, &c.
With such patients the use of the Carlsbad waters often act as an emetic
for the first day or two.—Corpulent indolent persons, who feed too much
and take little exercise, are always benefitted.
In all obstructed and infarcted states of the abdominal viscera, the
use of the Carlsbad waters may be recommended. Hence, in many cases
of hypochondriasis and hæmorrhoids, they are beneficial: also in
enlargements of the liver, spleen, and mesenteric glands.
In addition to these maladies, we may enumerate many cases of
amenorrhœa and dysmenorrhœa—diseases which are so often dependent upon
accumulations in the bowels and general torpor and plethora of the system.
2. The Carlsbad waters have the effect of freeing the blood of
acrimonious particles, either by neutralising and discharging them out of
the body, or by causing a metastasis and derivation of them to the joints
or to the skin. Hence in various forms of _internal_ gout and rheumatism,
they are singularly useful; the disease being often drawn from the
internal viscus which may happen to be affected to some outward part.
3. The Carlsbad waters cleanse the urinary passages of calculous deposits.
And lastly, they often effect a cure in a number of anomalous diseases,
whose causes are not known, and to which indeed, a name cannot be given;
as, for example, loss of power and feeling in the limbs, a tendency to
syncope followed by cramps, some cases of epilepsy and asthma; also in
certain disturbances of the mental functions. In all these cases, the
Carlsbad waters seem to act as an _alterative_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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