On Mineral Waters. 67 



to maintain, that art can never succeed in closely following up 

 nature, in the reproduction of a mineral water. It is worthy of 

 remark, that this objection has been raised almost exclusively 

 by superficial chemists ; whilst men whose whole lives have been 

 devoted to the cultivation of the science, have abstained from 

 expressing such doubts. The importance of the subject, how- 

 ever, still demands, that the grounds on which the objection 

 rests should not be passed over in silence. We shall, there- 

 fore, proceed to examine and to reply to them. 



Foremost, we may class the hypothesis, which ascribes the 

 virtues of mineral waters, in a great measure, to the agency of 

 imponderable bodies — especially to electricity. To this, the 

 baths of PfefFers, in Switzerland, and of Wilsbad, in the king- 

 dom of Wurtemberg, chiefly gave rise. Both are highly es- 

 teemed for their medical powers ; but as their efficacy does not 

 directly follow from the results of their analysis, (according to 

 which, the amount of their ingredients, whether of a fixed or of 

 a gaseous kind, is inconsiderable,) the imponderables were 

 pressed into the service. Not to dwell on the circumstance 

 that we possess no modern analysis of these springs, we have 

 only to keep in view the powerful influence which thermal 

 baths, even of common water, exert over the frame ; and we 

 shall no longer feel surprised at the effects of a system of bath- 

 ing, such as is followed at PfefFers, where the patient gradually 

 lengthens the period of his baths, from one to ten or twelve hours* 



Even admitting electricity to be instrumental in the primary 

 formation of a mineral water, the idea of its permanent activity 

 is at variance with all experience in electrical phenomena. The 

 hypothesis, however, appeared to acquire strength from the 

 theory of Becquerel, who, from the action of certain substances 

 on the electro-magnetical multiplicator, when brought into 

 contact with it at the moment of their becoming united, was led 

 to infer, that a disengagement of electricity accompanied the 

 chemical changes. Subsequently to the publication of this 

 opinion. Professor Kiistner, of Erlangen, attempted to prove 

 that the springs of Wisbaden, in the duchy of Nassau, mani- 

 fested electrical phenomena, dissimilar to those of an imitative 

 chemical mixture. The fallacy, however, of the inferences 

 drawn by the French philosopher, has since been laid open by 



F2 



