VOL. IV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3(J3 



abounds not much with alum. It is harsher to the taste than the other baths, 

 and soaks the hands more. 



Q. A man cannot drink half the quantity of strong drinks in the bath that he 

 can out of it; but if he has drank before to excess, it allays much, and is a great 

 refreshment to the body. The bath provokes urine. 



10. They are very useful in diseases of the head; palsies, epilepsies and con- 

 vulsions; in cuticular diseases, leprosies, itches and scabs ; in all obstructions of 

 the bowels, as spleen, liver, and mesentery; and the scirrosity and hardness of 

 those parts; in most diseases of woman; in the scurvy and stone; as to which 

 last, while I am writing, an alderman of the city assures me, that his wife, who 

 had been exceedingly troubled with the stone, went into the cross-bath for it, 

 and voided there several stones as large as those of olives, and was never trou- 

 bled with that distemper after. The bath is also good in cold gouts, as they 

 call them. The same alderman tells me, that it gives him present ease, when 

 he is troubled with the fits of it. He is accustomed to go in as soon as the fit 

 takes him, which then goes off presently, and returns not in a considerable 

 time after; he puts his feet upon the hottest springs in the king's bath. But it 

 has a contrary effect in hot gouts ; and some, who are troubled with that dis- 

 temper tell me, that the bath puts them into a fit if they go into it without 

 preparation ; or, if they have the fit before, it inflames it more, and sends it 

 about the body, and disables the joint so, that there is no treading on it for the 

 present. The bath is effectual in the diseases of children, particularly the 

 rickets, removing the humours that proceed from it. It is also good for women 

 that are apt to miscarry, if used moderately. The bath guides go in when they 

 are ready to lie down ; and other women of the town use it ordinarily through- 

 out their time, and are never observed to miscarry. It facilitates deliverance. 

 Besides, it is very eflfectual for the strengthening of broken bones, and good in 

 all cold and moist distempers and weakness of nerves, stupefactions, relaxations, 

 and violent pains; in all which it gives ease, except the lues venerea: for in that 

 (except the malignity be overcome by the methods of physic) it exasperates the 

 pain more. It is an excellent remedy for removing the remaining weakness in 

 gouts, as has been exemplified in old men even to the age of 83- years. 



11. There is no instance of cures performed by it in former times, but we 

 have experience of the same in ours and in some others, as in dropsies, ca- 

 chexies, spleen, &c. In which cases they were shy heretofore of using the 

 bath, for fear of confirming those obstructions, whereas it is now found that 

 their cure is facilitated by it. * 



* The asserted efficacy of the Bath waters in some of the diseases here enumerated, is contradicted 



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