66 On Mineral Waters. 



Having thus compounded a mineral water, with strict adhe- 

 rence to the first position, it remains to impart to it the exact 

 temperature of its prototype ; to submit it to a corresponding 

 pressure of carbonic acid gas, excluding at the same time, es- 

 pecially if it be a chalybeate, every particle of atmospheric air. 

 With the observance of these requisites, we shall succeed in 

 obtaining a mineral water, which is not to be distinguished from 

 the spring. It will coincide in appearance, taste, smell, and 

 other physical properties, with its original. The gas-bubbles 

 will rise in the same form, and spontaneous decomposition will 

 take place Avithin the same period^ and to the same extent. 

 That these external bearings must be punctiliously attended 

 to, I shall endeavour to prove more at length. If an artificial 

 mineral water, whose original contains no other gas than car- 

 bonic acid, be not perfectly free from atmospheric air or other 

 gas, it will deviate in quality. Its capacity of absorbing and 

 retaining carbonic acid, being impaired, the latter escapes more 

 easily, more rapidly, and in larger bubbles; and the decompo- 

 sition of the mineral water, that is to say, the precipitation of 

 the earths and of the oxide of iron, ensues in a similar ratio. 

 It cannot, however, be looked upon as a matter of indifference, 

 whether this decomposition ensues earlier or later in the organs 

 of digestion. 



Factitious mineral waters thus corresponding with the pro- 

 perties of the natural ones, will resemble them to the same ex- 

 tent in their effects on the human frame. Since the year 1821, 

 Dr. Struve has erected establishments for the purpose of their 

 exhibition, at Dresden, Berlin, Leipsic, Koenigsberg, Warsaw, 

 and Moscow. Most of the physicians in those towns are prac- 

 tically acquainted with the natural springs. The numerous 

 cases which they have contributed to Dr. Struve' s treatises*, 

 and to several medical journals, bear satisfactory testimony to 

 the coincidence of their medical virtues ; and the public, who 

 formerly were in the habit of resorting to the natural springs, 

 now entirely confide in these imitations. 



Although these facts have been acknowledged by the faculty 

 in general, a few medical writers have, nevertheless, attempted 



* Ueber die kuristliche Nachbildung der Heilquellen. P'^'. and 11*^' Theil, 

 1824 and 1826. 



