HYGEIA. 557 



etc. The great things, almost altogether overlooked, but 

 which should be most emphatically dwelt upon, are change 

 of place, climate, whole environment of the patient, with 

 pure water, and what medicine an intelligent physician 

 directs to be mixed therein. Pure water alone gives the 

 proper base or menstruum for different shapes of medical 

 combinations. 



Dr. Struve, of Dresden, has demonstrated the fact, that 

 factitious mineral waters, made by chemical imitation, have 

 all the demonstrable effects of the natural* The great 

 advantage is, that the factitious waters may be changed to 

 suit the varying circumstances of cases developed by the 

 progress of diseased conditions, new complications and 

 phases of advancement. Of deobstruent, alterative, pre- 

 vent-all, cure-all waters, more than enough of fables have 

 been told ; at the same time, it is true that certain springs do 

 possess over the body clearly-marked adjuvant powers to pre- 

 vent and cure morbid conditions of the same, but not specific 

 virtues over entire diseases. Thus there are springs said to 

 possess specific powers over bronchial diseases. Here the 

 direct stroke of the hammer is clearly questionable ; but that 



* From the grave statements of the advocates of the inexplicable, 

 powers of their particular springs, one might be led to suppose that 

 the chemist was incapable of making exact analyses of their waters, 

 and that they possess some occult virtues that science cannot, dis- 

 cover or understand. In this day of light and knowledge, suspicion 

 is naturally attached to all charmed fountains of the world which 

 are represented to possess inexplicable qualities and powers which 

 cannot be stated. Any change of water is generally followed by re- 

 sults of some kind, but the question will constantly arise, are they 

 morbific or sanitary? When we reflect upon the philosophy of springs 

 and the origin of their mineral contents, the conviction must come, that 

 the waters of mineral springs must be constantly changing in quality 

 and quantity of contents, and, in different seasons and kinds of 

 seasons, be very different. As these waters all fall from the clouds 

 and percolate the soil and rocks, dissolving the mineral elements 

 which give character to the springs, it must follow, that a rainy or 

 dry season will decide the' precise proportion of contained matter, 

 and the constantly varying qualities of the waters. 



47* 



