“The effects of the bath depend on the strength of the electric current generated and on the condition of the peripheral endings of the nerves; the effect may be stimulating or soothing. The strength of the current is governed, as we have seen, by the quantity of gases present, the temperature and the salts. Ordinary lukewarm baths, indifferent baths containing a small amount of gases, are less stimulating than mineral baths containing a larger proportion of gases. “With regard to the relative condition of the peripheral nerve-ends, experiments on the motor nerves go to show that swelling of the terminal ends of these nerves may diminish their excitability to the point of its complete extinction, while it becomes increased by their exsiccation. This fact as to the motor nerves is adopted by HEYMANN likewise as applying to the nerves of sensation. If, now, we presuppose absorption or even imbibition on the part of the skin, a swelling of the nerve-ends is comprehensible, as the imbibed fluid reaches them. But, according to HEYMANN, the peripheral nerve-ends, i.e., the terminal bulbs of KRAUSE, of the sensory nerves, and the tactile corpuscles of MEISSNER, become even without this presupposition sufficiently impregnated with water while in the bath, because here all insensible perspiration must cease, and in a bath of a temperature lower than blood-heat transpiration cannot take place, so that all transudation to the skin being retained during the bath, those termini are surrounded by moisture and therefore swell up. “From this the writer concludes with regard to the effects of the baths, that all baths in which the electric current produced by contact of the water with the body preponderates over the swelling of the nerve-ends, have a stimulant effect, while those baths where the swelling preponderates over the electric current, act as a sedative. “Taking a brief and comprehensive review therefore of the effects of mineral water baths, we have those resulting from the temperature, from the contents of carbonic acid and salts, and lastly from the electric current generated in the bath water; each effect however resolving itself into an excitation of the peripheral nerve-ends, which leads in a reflex manner to an enhancement of the change of matter.”