BAILEY. | ‘Mineral Waters. 47 
water’ cures heart disease, etc. On the other hand, it would be 
quite as flagrant an error to suppose that all reputed beneficial 
effects of mineral waters were only the result of extravagant or 
interested imaginings. . . . Yo obtain the greatest possi- 
ble benefit from springs, it is absolutely essential that the 
patient first consult his regular physician. . . . The in- 
discriminate use of mineral waters, either for drinking or bath- 
ing purposes, cannot be too strongly condemned ; for while they 
look bland and harmless, they are potent therapeutic agents 
which may accomplish much good if judiciously employed, but 
may also do much harm and may be followed by serious if not 
fatal results in careless hands.’’ 
SCIENTIFIC USE OF WATERS. 
‘‘All we need at American health resorts and mineral water- 
ing-places is to follow the natural scientific regime which has 
been worked out for centuries in Europe. There every patient 
confides in his physicians, and medical men value the mineral 
springs more, apparently, than we doin America. The patient 
is ordered to this or that spring for two or three months. He 
places himself entirely under the care of his family physician 
and the resident physician at the springs. Patients who are 
able to walk get up at six a. mM. and walk to the springs, drink 
the prescribed amount of water, and walk from one to two 
miles before breakfast. They take their meals regularly ; their 
diet is carefully regulated for each disease. They retire early, 
exercise freely, use the baths or drink the waters regularly, 
and improve twice as fast in Germany, France, and England, 
for the same class of diseases and with the same—almost the 
identical—mineral-water treatment as we have in America, 
simply because they follow a regular scientific system.’’- 
In regard to the therapeutic action of the substances usually 
found in mineral waters, the author cannot do better than to 
quote from Doctor Crook:*” ‘‘It may be said without fear of 
dispute that the most frequent, as well as the most important, 
component of a mineral spring is the water itself. Aside from 
its absolute necessity to the preservation of all forms of life, 
22. Mineral Waters of the United States and their Therapeutic Uses, p, 39. 
