5 i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



(a.) For uric-acid gravel. 



(b.) For vesical catarrh. 



(c.) For enlargements of the prostate gland. 



(d.) For gout, especially when it is hereditary, but occurs in a sub- 

 ject not individually predisposed by his way of life to the disease. 



In all these categories of chronic disease the waters of Contrexe- 

 ville, when supplemented by the kindly care of Dr. Brongniard, Dr. 

 Thiery, or some other of the excellent physicians to be found at this 

 station, will usually bring either cure or material relief. 



6. Martigny is a quiet place in a rolling plain of the Yosges, 1,272 

 feet above sea-level. The train voyages through this placid upland 

 country almost like a steamer upon the long swell of the Pacific Ocean. 

 You get off at a little station in the midst of the wheat and scarlet 

 poppies that are blowing together in the summer wind, and enjoy the 

 brilliant color which gives such a charm to the French wheat-growing 

 districts during the summer ; taking the stage, you are set down in 

 front of a fine new establishment brand-new, indeed, and scarcely 

 yet completed where groups of well-dressed people are gathered in 

 the newly planted park, waiting for the dinner-hour to strike. The 

 dining-room, by-the-way, is hardly large enough for the company. A 

 larger dining-hall was in process of building when I was there last 

 summer, and also a promenade for exercise during rainy weather. An 

 excellent reading-room is a feature of the establishment. 



The waters are calcic, and are substantially the same as those of 

 Yittel and Contrexeville, but purge less than the latter. There are 

 two springs, both cold, besides a " saponaceous " spring, so called 

 from the unctuous feel or texture of the water, and from its milky 

 appearance ; of this, however, little use is made. Dr. Bridou, the 

 physician in charge, is a serious and competent physician, a young 

 man, but well versed in the complex subject of mineral waters in 

 general, and of those of Martigny-les-Bains in particular. He makes 

 no extravagant claims for their virtues. " Gout and gravel c'est 

 tout" he said to me with decisive frankness ; " but surely it is much 

 to cure these two grave complaints." Gravel in its most frequent 

 form, that which depends upon the uric-acid diathesis, and gravel in 

 many of the severer cases even, are relieved or cured by these most 

 efficient waters. Regimen is carefully attended to, as at all of the best 

 French spas ; and while I will not say that regimen is exceptionally 

 necessary in the treatment of gout and gravel, it is a part of the treat- 

 ment that can not be dispensed with safely in any disease that depends 

 upon mal-nutrition. The mistake of many patients is that when once 

 they are arrived at a spring they think that the waters will do all. The 

 contrary is especially true of chronic diseases, and chronic diseases are 

 almost the only ones that are treated at mineral springs. For in 

 chronic diseases a cure is not wrought by a succession of powerful 

 remedial impacts, as in acute diseases it is often wrought. In chronic 



