72 



his predecessor, P. G, Schacher, wrote a good 

 Essay on this subject: Dissertatio de thermarum 

 Carolinarum usu in arthritide. Lips. 1709. 



The Carlsbad water, acting with so much energy 

 upon secretions and excretions , and strengthning 

 secondarily our digestive organs, must prove use- 

 ful in various forms of arthritis, so frequently com- 

 bined with abdominal disorders. Experience and 

 observation confirm every year that principle 5 but 

 we can scarcely expect to entirely remove by the 

 waters those calcareous hard concretions , which, 

 in their advanced state, tumefy the joints. They 

 are particularly efficacious in the wandering gout 

 (arthritis vaga) , provided patients adopt, not only 

 during the cure , but after it, a proper regimen, and 

 give up luxurious and epicurean habits, so apt to pro- 

 duce and to increase gouty disorders. We see often 

 such dormant evils, roused by the use of the wa- 

 ters, which also cause pains and inflammation of the 

 joints $ they frequently bring forward herpetic and 

 other eruptions, which relieve these pains; they 

 even sometimes excite spontaneous blisters and ve- 

 sicles of various sorts 5 they very often produce 

 oedematous swellings in women's feet, which disap- 

 pear as soon as they give up drinking the waters 5 

 and all these external effects prove salutary. That 

 oedematous swelling is mentioned by ancient authors. 

 Gouty complaints are in general more successfully 

 removed by abundant urine, than by copious alvine 

 evacuations. 



