They are slightly sudorific and diuretic, and apt to occasion in some patients headache of short duration, directly after they are taken.
They are also employed for curing visceral and scrofulous obstructions, torpor of the intestines, chronic engorgements of the joints: sprains of long standing, obstinate catarrhs, rheumatism, etc, and in some dyspeptic and hypochondriacal cases.
The warm sulphureous waters are to be preferred; attention however should be paid to the state of the bowels during their course which ought to be kept free from any accumulation by the aid of some mild aperient medicine; Spa Doctors trust almost entirely to the aperient operation of the waters and doubtless, the crises, spa-fevers, and re-actions described by foreign writers on the spas are often attributable to the want of combining some mild mercurial alterative and aperient with the use of the waters, and that many cures are prevented or rendered ineffectual by the dread of mercury entertained by continental Physicians. The following what Dr. Johnson terms the Auxilio-Preservative will be found of essential service taken every night before drinking the morning waters.
| R, | |||||
| Ext: Col: Co: | |||||
| Pil: Rhei: Co: | à à | gr. | xl | ||
| Pil: Hydrarg: | — | gr. | x | ||
| Ol: Caryoph: | — | gr. | vi | ||
| ft. pil: XX capt. 1 vel: ij hora somni. | |||||
It is however absolutely necessary on patients arriving at any spa, to consult the resident Physician.
With respect to the use of mineral waters in general, we consider them as most important, and extremely beneficial in the treatment of disease; some of the good effects of all of them however, must be allowed to proceed from change of air and scene; relaxation from business, amusement, temperance, and regular hours, and under these circumstances the drinking the waters at the springs possesses advantages which cannot be obtained from artificial waters, however excellent the imitations may be, nor even from the natural water, when bottled and conveyed to a distance from the springs.