On Mineral Waters. 63 



to decomposition, are used with almost equal advantage at a 

 distance from the springs ; that the earliest cures by them were 

 mostly performed on the country people, constantly residing in 

 their vicinity; that, in many diseases, characteristic symptoms 

 occur during the treatment by them ; that frequently the cure 

 is not finally effected until some time after the course of waters 

 has been concluded ; and that they prove injurious, if misap- 

 plied ; we cannot but allow them to be highly active remedies. 

 Mineral waters are almost exclusively adapted to diseases of a 

 chronic kind, — the reduction of which, no less than their ori- 

 ginal developement, is the work of time, and unattended by very 

 striking critical symptoms. Were the fact, however, otherwise, 

 the regimen prescribed during their use should scarcely be 

 looked upon in a different light, than that enjoined with other 

 powerful remedies — as, for instance, with antiphlogistics — the 

 most skilful treatment with which would be rendered abortive, 

 if unaccompanied by a suitable diet. 



Physicians have often been induced to think lightly of mine- 

 ral waters, because their alleged virtues do not appear sanc- 

 tioned by the results of analysis. But however accurately 

 chemistry may point out the acids and bases, there are no 

 certain means of determining the relative proportions of the 

 binary combinations into which they enter, and on which the 

 peculiar character of a mineral spring, appears, for the most 

 part, to depend. Dr. Murray, who first drew our attention to 

 this point, has shown that, by simply changing the order of 

 combination in which the elements are commonly arranged in 

 our tables of analysis, we are presented with an entirely different 

 view concerning the effects of a spring. Hence, in pronouncing 

 upon its efficacy, experience is our only unerring guide ; and 

 analysis can have no further value for the physician, than as it 

 enables him to estimate, from analogy, the medical virtues of a 

 spring, by its synthetical resemblance to another, whose effects 

 he already knows. 



The inconsiderate praise sometimes lavished on mineral 

 waters, in recommending them for almost every disease with 

 which human nature is afflicted, has likewise had a tendency 

 to bring them into discredit ; for although the cases in which 

 these remedies are applicable, are very numerous, yet, to expect 



