THE BATH THERMAL WATERS ; AND BATH 

 AS A HEALTH RESORT. 



John Kent Spender, M.D. Lond., 



Physician to the Royal Mineral Water Hospital, Bath. 



■npHE Science of Balneology, as it is termed, has been built 

 upon the different properties and temperature of water. 

 Pure water is practically unknown ; as it exists in Nature it 

 has always saline or gaseous material, generally both. These 

 are the characters of what is termed spring water, fitting it 

 for the various purposes of domestic economy. A water 

 ceases to be potable, and is unfit for domestic use, when it 

 contains matter alien to the necessities of the healthy body. 

 It then becomes a medicine. No precise line can be drawn \ 

 but when a water is so far mineralized as to be decidedly 

 medicinal, it is the duty of medical men to find out what 

 can be done with it. 



But a medical man may perfectly know the physiology of 

 the whole body, and perfectly know the chemistry of a 

 mineral water, and yet not understand how to apply that 

 mineral water to any heaUng purpose. The one faculty does 

 not teach or imply the other. Medicated Waters are the 

 workmanship of Nature, and we learn their virtues solely by 

 their effects. To discuss what they ought to do is a purely 

 scholastic exercise. Thermal medicine is a matter of appre- 

 ciation and tact. A mineral water has no other value than 

 that which a skilful physician knows how to elicit from it. 

 Even the illustrious Boyle, with his analytic mind, confessed 

 that the " surest way of knowing them " [mineral waters] is 



