Pilgrimages to the Spas in Pursuit of Health and Recreation / With an inquiry into the comparative merits of different mineral waters: the maladies to which they are applicable, and those in which they are injurious

by James Johnson

(First Pilgrimage.)

Many tribes of the great John Bull family appear, of late years, to have abjured “red port” and “brown stout,” in favour of several breweries on the Continent, and especially in Germany. These breweries are deeply seated in the bowels of the Earth, and the art and mystery of their brewings are far beyond the sight and cognizance of man. Whether cocculus Indicus, logwood, sloe-juice, or opium enter into their gigantic vats and boiling cauldrons, it is hard to say; but, however manufactured, they are thrown up on the surface of our globe, pro bono publico—greatly to the detriment of doctors, druggists, and apothecaries, in this and in many other countries.

The subterranean distilleries are conducted on the homœopathic principle—viz. that of employing the minutest quantities of active materials—probably in order to do the least possible harm. They have many and great advantages over the homœopathic laboratories. They diffuse their ingredients through such immense potions of water, that, to get at a few grains of the former, we are obliged to ingurgitate some quarts of the latter. Now the mere mechanical flow of such prodigious doses of fluid through the various outlets—the bowels, kidneys, skin, &c. must sweep away morbid secretions, and contribute to the breaking down of obstructions in different organs, independently of the medicinal agents that are diffused through the mass of liquids in the greatest possible state of division and solution—circumstances which enable them to permeate and penetrate through innumerable capillary tubes and complicated glandular apparatuses, where grosser materials could never reach.

The natural fountains of Hygeia, however, have other advantages and auxiliaries, of which the laboratory of the chemist, and the pharmacy of the practitioner are deprived. Hope itself, though often resting on fallacious and exaggerated histories of cures, contributes much to the accomplishment of even marvellous recoveries. The severing, or even relaxing of that chain which binds care round the human heart, and augments the sufferings and the progress of disease, is no mean ally of the spa. It is true indeed, that the “splendid misery” of the great, and the corroding grief of the exile, cannot be thrown off by change of climate—

Scandit æratas vitiosa naves

Cura—quid terras, alio calentes

Sole, mutamus—patriæ quis exul

Se quoque fugit?[1]

But the valetudinarian in pursuit of health, is somewhat differently circumstanced. The change of scene and air—of food and drink—of rising and retiring—of exercise and conversation—in short, of the whole moral and physical conditions around him, effect, in many cases, such a mental and corporeal improvement, as makes easy work for the mineral waters—especially when the extreme dilution of their contents is taken into consideration.

Let it not be supposed, however, that this picture is without any reverse. Many diseases—especially organic ones—are aggravated by the journey to a distant spa—by the imprudent use of the water—by the warm or hot bathing—by the enthusiasm or rather hydromania, of the spa-doctor, who, having little acquaintance with the constitution of the patient, extols his favourite spring, and recommends it in almost every complaint. To separate probabilities from improbabilities, and impossibilities from both, will be attempted occasionally in the following pages, as we pass in review some of the principal resorts of invalids on both sides of the Rhine.