18 On the Mineral Waters near Landour. 



day. I found this faith, for which there is no chemist's test, 

 increase their efficacy by inspiring hope, and guarding off 

 despondency, during the protracted treatment of long stand- 

 ing disease. Those who imagine, that such cheering feelings 

 are confined to the wealthy, and are unfelt by the poor soldier, 

 because he lives mechanically and dies numerically, forget 

 that the mind is unshackled, though the body may not be 

 free. 



At the watering places in Europe, many complaints, from 

 which the idle, the over-tasked in brain or body, and the over- 

 physicked suffer, would yield to nature, as their exciting 

 causes were removed ; yet assisting nature, by the use of the 

 mineral waters, accelerates, and renders the cure more per- 

 fect. 



In the hills, the watering places of India, but till now 

 without mineral waters, there are also many diseases caused 

 by the climate of the plains. Where the cause has been re- 

 moved, it does not, in many cases, require active treatment 

 to remove the effects ; nor in general are the changes sud- 

 den. Many medicine-chest-mvdlids came from the plains, 

 dragging their bane along with them, to which they cling 

 with the tenacity of a drunkard to his dram, who think it 

 absolutely necessary, to be taking physic, and who would be 

 injured by active medicine. In these cases, even if inert, the 

 waters would be better than physic ; but that they are not 

 inert for evil, has frequently been proved, by the injury pro- 

 duced by people unadvisedly taking the wrong water. I have, 

 in several occasions, seen unfavourable symptoms induced by 

 their use. If, when injudiciously used, they be active for evil ; 

 it may be inferred that, when judiciously used, they will be 

 active for good. 



The difficulty of determining the action of remedies in 

 chronic diseases, is increased, in the present instance, by a 

 favourable change of climate occurring at the same time that 

 the remedies were employed. It may be inferred, that the 



