32 On the Neglect of the Bath Wafers. 



He states, moreover, thai Bath is subject to the inconvenience 

 of a larger proportion of rain than falls on the eastern side of 

 the kingdom. This is certainly true, but it is not the whole 

 truth, and it leads readers to consider the situation as worse in 

 this respect than it really is. The average fall of rain here 

 during seven years was 27 inches, which is only three inches 

 more than at Tottenham, and is far below the average of the 

 whole kingdom. If the average fall here be compared with 

 that at Gosport, (30 inches,) or at the Isle of Wight, (36 inches,) 

 Bath cannot be regarded as a rainy situation. 



So much for the information to be derived from this popular 

 work. Its logic is even more extraordinary, for the author 

 endeavours to prove that a looker-on, or a person who sees 

 what happens in a place from which he is more than one hundred 

 miles distant, " has superior advantages in forming a general 

 and comparative estimate of matters so much in detail as the 

 medical powers of mineral springs, to one whose labours in this 

 undertaking have been aided by industry, scientific knowledge, 

 and opportunities afforded by a residence on the spot." Pre- 

 face, p. 1 1 . 



I have stated the foreign causes of the neglect of Bath 

 waters in the cure of disease to be the writings and opinions of 

 physicians and other practitioners, chiefly resident in the metro- 

 polis ; and having noticed y.aT'i^oxnv the work of Dr. Saunders, 

 it remains for me to observe that his opinions have been adopted 

 by some physicians, though, I believe, not by many. As to 

 the other practitioners, it will be observed that I have not 

 styled them medical, and this may at first excite surprise ; for 

 few persons would suppose that the writings and opinions of 

 the surgical part of the profession, could affect a circumstance 

 so entirely out of their province. Yet such is actually the 

 case. I do not mean to say that any of them have composed 

 treatises upon the internal use of the Bath waters, or that they 

 have promulgated opinions which have had a direct tendency to 

 injure their reputation with the public. This has, however, been 

 done, indirectly, by one of this class of practitioners ; who 

 scorning the limits of a laudatory but arduous contention with his 



