This great valetudinarium then presents four or five wards or hygeian fountains, of which the Sprudel stands most conspicuous. I was completely disappointed at the first sight of this lion of the Spas. The descriptions and drawings of the spring are most outrageously exaggerated. One would expect to see a fountain of boiling fluid rising to a height of six or eight feet, and falling down in fervid and foaming showers. No such thing. During half the time, it does not rise above the level of the kettle in which it boils; and is often below that mark. Then it mounts a foot or so, and every now and then spirts a small irregular and ragged pillar or column of foaming water to a height of two, three, or perhaps four feet above the reservoir. More frequently, however, it squirts a jet of water to one or the other side of the kettle, which splashes into the conduits that carry it off. The whole of the kettle, reservoir, and exits are coated with calcareous deposits, and, in many parts covered with green matter, the bodies or receptacles of animalculæ. Still the Sprudel is a stupendous ebullition of hot medicinal water from some infernal laboratory, amply sufficient for the expurgation of a whole nation! The temperature of the water is 168° of Fahrenheit, each pint containing about 44 grains of solid matters, of which the sulphates, carbonates, and muriates of soda form 37 grains. A trace, and merely a trace, of iron is found in the water. Some very recent analyses have also detected traces of iodine, and of an animal substance, together with some sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Its taste is certainly not very agreeable and rather mawkish—and though clear at the fountain, it is turbid when cold. It very much resembles the Cockbrunnen in savour.
The second spring is the Muhlbrunn, whose temperature is nearly 30° below that of the Sprudel; but whose constituent salts are the same. Nevertheless this difference of temperature is supposed to produce a difference in the taste of the water, and renders it more acceptable to the stomachs, or at least to the palates, of many of the drinkers at Carlsbad.[69]
The Neubrunn is separated from the former source only by a covered walk, and marks 144° of heat. It did not appear to me to be so much in vogue at this fashionable watering-place, as the Muhlbrunnen.
Behind the Neubrunn there is a hill, cut into terraces and gravelled walks, where rises the Theresienbrunn—a spring much frequented by the ladies, and indeed by both sexes. The temperature is only 134° of Fahrenheit, and the water is almost tasteless. These three (with the Hygienequelle, close to the Sprudel) are the chief springs, which are much frequented by the great mass of bibbers at Carlsbad.[70]
The waters of all the springs deposit abundance of calcareous matters, which crystallize in stalactites of all shapes and hues, called Sprudelstein, and give employment to numerous hands in the formation of snuff-boxes and various kinds of bijoux.[71] As incrustations form on the surfaces of any woody, mineral, or vegetable substance immersed in these waters, a fear is sometimes engendered in timid minds that similar incrustations might form in the stomach, bowels, or kidneys of those who drink them! It has been proved by Dr. De Carro and others, that the stalactitious deposits will not take place on any animal substance, with the exception of the teeth. Even here, the quantity of stony matter is so small in a dozen beakers of the Sprudel, that nothing is to be apprehended to the teeth on this score. It would, perhaps, be a happy circumstance for Germany, if the Sprudel had the faculty of encrusting the teeth with a calcareous enamel! If such were the case, the whole of the five springs at Carlsbad would be insufficient to supply dentrifice varnish enough!
A serio-comic anecdote is related of a hypochondriac, who had drunk of these waters for some weeks before the petrifying thought flashed across his mind, (in consequence of some uneasy sensations in his stomach) that incrustations were forming in his interior. From that moment he became firmly convinced that snuff-boxes, heads of canes, Madonnas, and even crucifixes, were torturing his entrails! He drenched himself daily with drastic purgatives—but, unfortunately, no stalactites came forth: on the contrary, his inward pains and miseries were increased by the very means that were employed to expel the enemy! Whether he ever recovered from his imaginary sufferings is not known.
Another source of terror to the timid and nervous drinkers at Carlsbad has lately arisen. A learned German philosopher has discovered living fossil animalculæ in the waters of Carlsbad. Now if these little salamanders can “live and move, and have their being,” in the Sprudel at a temperature of 167°—or rather in the bowels of the earth, where the water is at the boiling point, or even in the form of steam, it may well be supposed that they would thrive luxuriously in the temperate climate of the human stomach, where the heat does not exceed 98° of Fahrenheit. However, the drinkers of the Thames water need have no fears respecting the Infusoria of Carlsbad, which would soon be devoured by the proteiform monsters which are daily ingurgitated by the citizens of London.