PURE  CARBONIC  ACID,  MINERAL  AND  LITHIA  WATER.  113 
ON  PUKE  CARBONIC  ACID,  MINERAL  AND  LTTHIA 
WATER. 
By  Prof.  Henry  Wurtz. 
I  am  desirous  of  directing  the  attention  of  pharmaceutists, 
through  the  pages  of  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  to  a 
subject  whose  more  careful  consideration  would,  I  believe,  result 
in  great  advantages  to  the  public  as  well  as  themselves.  I  allude 
to  the  provision  and  production  by  them,  of  purer,  more  whole- 
some, more  palatable  and  more  reliable  forms  of  carbonic  acid 
water  and  artificial  mineral  waters.  It  has  now  become  so  uni- 
versal a  practice  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  resort  for  such  pre- 
parations to  the  counter  of  the  pharmaceutist,  that  it  behooves 
every  earnest  man  of  this  class  to  follow  up  closely  the  march  of 
discovery  and  improvement  in  this  important  branch  of  his  art, 
and  to  place  himself,  in  this  respect,  on  a  level  above  that  of  the 
mere  bar-keeper  or  the  vender  of  ginger  pop. 
Notwithstanding  the  great  attention  given  by  eminent  trans- 
atlantic chemists  and  medical  men,  to  the  artificial  fabrication  of 
the  waters  of  natural  healing  springs,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
few  of  our  American  chemists  have  accomplished  much  in  this 
field  ;  and  as  to  our  physicians,  it  may  be  asserted  that  they  also 
have  generally  treated  it  with  neglect.    This  undervaluation  of 
the  matter  may  be  clearly  shown  to  be,  to  use  mild  terms,  im- 
proper and  inconsiderate.    Without,  however,  entering  upon  the 
discussion  of  this  extensive  topic  at  length,  we  may  give  here  a 
paragraph  relating  to  "  Seltzer  water,"  from  a  little  work  recently 
published  by  Carl  Schultz,  a  young  chemist  of  New  York,  who 
has  devoted  himself  for  a  number  of  years  to  the  study  of  the 
practical  manufacture,  on  a  large  scale,  of  pure  mineral  waters, 
a  paragraph  which  will  be  eminently  suggestive,  to  every  intelli- 
gent man,  of  the  truly  vital  importance  of  the  subject. 
"  The  great  effectiveness  of  certain  Spas  should  not,  therefore,  be  as- 
cribed to  one  or  two  of  their  prominent  constituents,  but  to  the  very  har- 
riiony  which  their  composition  presents  with  the  mineral  ingredients  of 
the  human  blood.  Let  us  take  Sellers,  for  example,  and  compare  its  com- 
position with  that  of  the  ashes  of  blood  serum,  according  to  an  analysis 
which  is  considered  as  the  most  reliable  one  (by  Lehmann  :) 
8 
