Phthisical affections, except in the earliest stage, and before any material change has taken place in the lungs, preclude the idea of utility from these waters. Emaciation, from internal suppuration in any organ, and resembling phthisis, forbids the waters of Wisbaden. The same may be said of cachectic habits, where the blood is broken down, and the solids wasted. Dropsy of the chest, abdomen, or skin will be prejudiced by these sources—and in short, all diseases connected with, or dependent on defect of vital energy; or, in other words, debility of constitution generally. Catarrhal affections of kidneys and bladder—fluor albus—severe derangement of the digestive organs, (grand derangement des organs de la digestion)—chronic diarrhœa, &c. with emaciation, will derive no benefit but injury from these waters. All tendency to spitting of blood—all enlargements of the glandular abdominal organs with debility and wasting, prohibit the use of Wisbaden waters. The same holds good with respect to stony concretions in the kidneys or bladder—biliary concretions in the gall-bladder or ducts—scirrhous formations in any of the organs of the interior, or exterior parts—all organic affections of the heart or large vessels—epilepsy—catalepsy—St. Vitus’s dance—very inveterate forms of gout, with chalk-stones, paralytic lameness, and considerable debility. In some of these last cases, Dr. R. thinks that, when directed with skill and caution, the waters may afford some relief though nothing like a cure. Sterility, with constitutional exhaustion and debility, has little to hope from Wisbaden. The reader will here perceive a long list of maladies which the Wisbaden waters will not cure, but aggravate. It is very rare for a spa-doctor to offer any such list. Their springs are panaceas for all the ills to which flesh is heir. There is a passage in Dr. Peez’s work respecting the baths which deserves attention. He remarks that there is a point of _saturation_ in the use of thermal waters, beyond which it is dangerous to proceed. But this point of saturation is difficult to ascertain. The following is not very consolatory. “The temperature of the bath must be made to correspond as exactly as possible with their individuality. Baths that are but _one_ degree too warm or too cool, will very soon produce the point of saturation. Neither is it advisable that such a person should bathe daily, nor, in the beginning, stay in the bath longer than 15-25 minutes: for his great irritability very easily provokes in the very beginning those excitations that are the forerunners of critical secretions and accelerate the appearance of the symptoms of overbathing, and if the patient be not exposed to the danger of a violent artificial fever, the success of his cure is, at least, rendered very doubtful. He is, in this case, obliged to discontinue bathing so long that the time intended to have been spent in bathing passes, or must be prolonged considerably.” 161.