Whether his lordship’s breathing, and consequently his years, have been lengthened by the dissolution of substernal adhesions, or by certain corporate reforms effected by the Sprudel, may admit of some doubt; but the narrative shews on what sort of evidence the miracles of the spas sometimes rest! Not that this evidence is worse than we have often at home—witness the attestation on oath by a nobleman, that he saw St. John Long extract quicksilver from the brain of a man who had taken mercury—and the solemn assertions of grave and learned doctors, that an Irish girl could see through her navel, and hear with the points of her fingers!!
If we estimate the number of cures by the number of candidates, this spa must be “a sovereign remedy” for many of our ills. But this criterion is not always correct. It is not always the physician who sees most patients that cures most diseases. But Carlsbad, like other bads, has a very convenient postern to retreat through, when hard pressed for testimonials. Thus, if the first season fails, the most confident hopes are held out that the second will succeed. If the second turn out a miscarriage, then the third will prove infallible! It requires no ghost to prophesy that, if the pilgrim of the spas goes two successive years to Bohemia, without relief, the third pilgrimage will, in all human probability, be to that “undiscovered country,” whence no invalids return to tell their tale of disappointment! If a patient die at home, it is because he did not visit Carlsbad—if at Carlsbad, because he came too late.
The waters of Carlsbad were formerly used almost entirely as baths—but now it is just the reverse—they are chiefly taken internally. In former times the bathers passed eight or ten hours in the baths, as they now do at Leuk, Baden, and Pfeffers. My friend De Carro thinks that, formerly, cutaneous complaints were more rife—and now, that liver and stomach affections are the prevailing maladies—hence the change from bathing to drinking at this celebrated spa. There may be some truth in this. The taste of these waters very much resembles that of weak chicken-broth, with a flat and alkaline savour. It has been seen that soda, combined with sulphuric, muriatic, and carbonic acids, is the chief agent in the Carlsbad waters. Soda uncombined with acids, either out of or in the body, has rather a deleterious effect on the organs of circulation and digestion. “But the Carlsbad water (says Chev. De Carro) though used for a long time, reanimates, vivifies, excites the appetite, and promotes digestion—thus with proper regimen, restoring the patient to health.” Doubtless the efficacy of the waters is augmented by the admixture, however small in quantity, of other elements, as the oxide of iron, the carbonic acid, the iodine, and materials yet unknown, diffused in extreme solution, through a fluid of a very high temperature, which enables the component parts of the spring to permeate the minutest vessels of the body. The Carlsbad salts are found in the renal secretion, as well as in the cutaneous transpiration, after being taken internally. These waters act by exciting the stomach, bowels, kidneys, liver, and abdominal organs generally, augmenting the secretions and excretions—especially those of the intestines, sometimes it is said even to purgation, when they are taken in considerable quantity. This effect, however, must be rather unfrequent, for I found no one, including myself, who experienced it. “They excite the circulation, so as frequently to produce palpitation of the heart, and determination of blood to the head. This water augments the activity of the absorbents; but it is not till after its other operations, that it acts as a direct tonic.” Purgation is not considered by the Carlsbad doctors as essential to its beneficial agency, which is often produced without any action on the bowels, but only on the various secretions already mentioned. In all cases, however, it is necessary to guard against constipation, by adding some Carlsbad salts to the water, or exhibiting some other aperient. Although these waters contain no sulphuretted hydrogen gas, or extremely little, they produce fætid eructations from the stomach when drunk—but they have not a corresponding effect on the alvine evacuations. “The operation of the Carlsbad waters, in fact, is what is called ‘alterative,’ or ‘deobstruent;’ and as such they are applicable to a long list of maladies arising from congestion or obstruction in the abdominal organs, particularly the liver, spleen, mesentery and other glandular viscera, attended by debility of the stomach, heart-burn, acidity, distention, eructations, constipation, jaundice, biliary concretions, hypochondriasis, hæmorrhoids, head-aches, giddiness, gouty feelings, cutaneous eruptions, scrofula, and urinary obstructions.”[74]
This is an encouraging picture, but I have no reason to consider it as overcharged. Dr. De Carro observes, that it is impossible to explain the modus operandi of such simple and minute ingredients on the human organism. “Whoever, he remarks, has experienced a crisis (called also the spa fever—the bad-sturm, &c.) in his own person, will never doubt the power of the Carlsbad waters.”
Dr. De C. compares the action of the Carlsbad waters on the human frame to a good filter that separates all impurities from the constitution.
“Hypochondriacal affections appear nowhere under more various forms than at Carlsbad; and the misanthropic and pusillanimous feelings of those unfortunate beings, passing, without known motives, from hope to despondency, from moroseness to exaltation, deserve the greatest indulgence and sympathy. When we see so many hepatic and splenetic patients whose temper depends entirely on the state of their abdominal functions, we feel disposed to forgive the materialism of the ancients, who placed the seat of so many passions in the liver; we remember unwillingly the Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur, the jecur ulcerosum of Horace, as synonymous of jealousy and violent love, and we understand how they could say that men splene rident, felle irascunt, jecore amant, pulmone jactantur, corde sapiunt.”
The worthy Doctor deplores the disappointments and mortifications which many invalids from far distant lands annually experience here, when they learn, to their grief and dismay, that the mineral waters are totally inapplicable to their maladies! They have then only the alternative of laying their bones in Bohemian soil, or undertaking another long, fatiguing, and expensive journey towards their native land. Dr. De Carro blames the ignorance which prevails among the faculty generally, respecting the medicinal properties of the Carlsbad and other spas. But the spa doctors themselves, and spa tourists, are not entirely blameless. The exaggerated accounts that are published respecting the miraculous powers of almost every spa in Germany, are quite sufficient to mislead practitioners and patients who have no personal knowledge of these vaunted springs. One great object of the present volume is the attempt to sift the grain from the chaff, or to filter these waters and depurate them of their gross crudities and absurdities.
“The Carlsbad waters (says Dr. De C.) are detrimental when there are any symptoms of inflammation, congestion, or vertigo present. If these exist on the arrival of the invalid, they must be removed before he takes the waters; if they occur during the use of the waters, these last must be immediately discontinued.”
Dr. De C. observes, that these springs are detrimental in phthisis or any grade of pulmonary complaint—and that, in general, they aggravate organic diseases of all kinds, and hasten their march. Here then is a rule which applies to many of the spas besides Carlsbad—namely, that the constitution should be free from inflammation, congestion, and structural changes in any organ, before the waters can be safely taken. Dropsical affections, even where no organic disease can be detected as their cause, are aggravated by the Carlsbad waters. Dr. De C. relates a melancholy instance of a nobleman who was sent there from a great distance—only to die of dropsy.