We took up our quarters at the Bear, exactly opposite the baths, and had no reason to complain of our accommodations in this hotel. My chamber was in the back of the house, just over the noisy little Enz; but its murmurings only lulled me to a sound sleep, after the keen mountain air, and the healthy exercise of the day.
It is only within these few years that Wildbad has become much known, through the writings of Drs. Flicker and Granville. Professor Heim has now added to the means of its publicity. In 1830, the number of bathers was 470—in 1837, 1,003—in 1838, the number was 1,235. In this list, the real bathers and drinkers only are inscribed. The mere passengers of a day or two are omitted. In 1837, there were only ten English, who used the waters. In 1838, there were 130. In 1839, about the middle of August, when I was there, the number had still encreased. The accommodations hitherto have been insufficient. In this year, 1840, a new and grand edifice will be completed, capable of contributing to the comfort—would that it may not add to the gambling luxury or destruction of—a large number of visitors! The Palace, which is close to the baths, is open to the public—in fact, it is a hotel, for the refreshment of body and mind. It would be unjust, not to commemorate here the wise, salutary, and beneficent injunction against gambling, which is rigorously enforced by the government. May it continue in force, per omnia secula seculorum!
The warm baths of Wildbad issue from several sources in the granite rock; but are collected into four basins, isolated from each other, and under particular regulations. Just opposite the Bear Hotel is the place for drinking the waters, a few feet below the surface of the square or market-place. There are two spouts, and I observed for two hours the devotees of this Hygeian spring. I should have little hesitation in swearing that there was not a single malingerer (to use a military phrase for one who feigns disease,) in the whole group, amounting to about sixty or eighty. They all bore intrinsic marks of indisposition; but the maimed, the lame, the paralytic, and the rheumatic, constituted nine-tenths of the assemblage. I had an early note from Professor Heim, politely offering to shew me the baths. With him I proceeded to the Furstenbad, or Prince’s Bath, in which Dr. Granville bathed. On entering the Bad, I found it occupied by two persons—one quite naked, the other with white drawers on—while Dr. Fricker, who stood on the steps with a watch in his hand, was directing the operations. I naturally shrunk back, with an apology for intruding; but my kind and honest friend, Dr. Heim, pushed me forward, observing, that there was “no offence.” The bather was a Russian General, Comte ——, and he who sat behind him in the bath, rubbing his back, was the bad-meister. I entered into conversation with the General and his medical director, and found them agreeable, intelligent, and frank communicants. The douche having been applied, and the bathing process finished, I withdrew for a quarter of an hour, while the bath was preparing for myself. Most of my readers must have read or heard of these celebrated waters by Dr. Granville, and I must here record his account of the surprising sensations which they produce on the human frame immersed in them.
“After descending a few steps from the dressing-room into the bath-room, I walked over the warm soft sand to the farthest end of the bath, and I laid myself down upon it, near the principal spring, resting my head on a clean wooden pillow. The soothing effect of the water as it came over me, up to the throat, transparent like the brightest gem or aquamarine, soft, genially warm, and gently murmuring, I shall never forget. Millions of bubbles of gas rose from the sand, and played around me, quivering through the lucid water as they ascended, and bursting at the surface to be succeeded by others. The sensation produced by these, as many of them, with their tremulous motion, just effleuraient the surface of the body, like the much vaunted effect of titillation in animal magnetism, is not to be described. It partakes of tranquillity and exhilaration; of the ecstatic state of a devotee, blended with the repose of an opium eater. The head is calm, the heart is calm, every sense is calm; yet there is neither drowsiness, stupefaction, nor numbness; for every feeling is fresher, and the memory of worldly pleasures keen and sharp. But the operations of the moral as well as physical man are under the spell of some powerfully tranquillising agent. It is the human tempest lulled into all the delicious playings of the ocean’s after-waves. From such a position I willingly would never have stirred. To prolong its delicious effects what would I not have given! but the bad-meister appeared at the top of the steps of the farther door, and warned me to eschew the danger of my situation; for there is danger even in such pleasures as these, if greatly prolonged.
“I looked at the watch and the thermometer before I quitted my station. The one told me I had passed a whole hour, in the few minutes I had spent according to my imagination; and the other marked 29½° of Reaumur, or 98¼° of Fahrenheit. But I found the temperature warmer than that, whenever, with my hand, I dug into the bed of sand, as far down as the rock, and disengaged myriads of bubbles of heated air, which imparted to the skin a satiny softness not to be observed in the effects of ordinary warm baths.
“These baths are principally used from five o’clock in the morning until seven, and even much later; and again by some people in the evening. The time allowed for remaining in the water is from half an hour to an hour; but it is held to be imprudent to continue the bath to the latter period, as experience has shown that such sensations as I felt, and have endeavoured to describe, prove ultimately too overpowering to the constitution, if prolonged to excess.”[29]
Dr. Kerner, who preceded Dr. Granville, makes use of the following expressions, quoted by the latter author.
“The use of the Wildbad waters cannot be too much commended. They serve, indeed, to make the old young again; while younger persons, who have become prematurely old, owing to exhaustion, and those who are exhausted by close application and incessant fatigue, rise out of these baths with new strength and youth.”
Although I called to mind these identical expressions, as applied by Dr. Fenner to the Serpent’s Bath at Schlangenbad, and remembered also my disappointment; yet I could not divest myself of the pleasing anticipations that Wildbad would realize the effects recorded by my friend Dr. Granville, and that I should retreat from this romantic valley at least ten years younger than when I entered it. I dispensed with the attendance of the bad-meister—locked the door—descended into the bath—and creeping to the identical spot where Dr. Granville experienced the “ecstatic state of a devotee, blended with the repose of an opium-eater,” I waited, not without some impatience, the advent of this fore-taste of Paradise. But no such good fortune awaited me! I eyed the gas bubbles that rose around me, not indeed “in millions,” nor even in dozens—but so sparingly that I could have easily numbered them, eager though they had been to “quiver through the lucid water” in their ascent to greet my friend and confrere a few years previously. With every wish to be pleased, and with the most minute attention to my own sensations, I must confess that I experienced no effects from the waters of Wildbad, other than I did from baths of similar temperature and composition, as those of Schlangenbad, Baden, and Pfeffers.[30] They have the same advantage as the Pfeffers, in maintaining the same temperature, however long we may remain in them—the stream running in and out of the baths. Whether this may not sometimes tempt the bad-meisters to save the trouble and time of emptying the baths after each bather, I do not profess to know. With respect to the bed of warm sand at the bottom, I think it is more pleasant to the feelings than to the imagination. It is impossible that it can be changed; and the idea of lying down in a bed which a leper may have just left, is not the most pleasant in the world. For myself, I should prefer the clean marble, or even the wood to this substratum of sand. It is but justice to state, that there is a rule for all persons to go through the quarantine of a plain bath before commencing the medicinal. Such a rule, however, was not imposed upon me—nor I believe, on the generality of casual bathers. I stayed in the bath half an hour, and felt exceedingly refreshed by it. I have no hesitation, therefore, in giving it as my opinion that the waters of Wildbad are inferior to none, in their medicinal agency, as baths of a non-stimulant and simple kind. Their improper use is not nearly so hazardous as those of Wisbaden, Kissengen, or Carlsbad, whose saline ingredients act powerfully on the sentient extremities of the nerves of the skin, and too often excite dangerous commotions in the animal economy.
In the course of the day I fell in with my bath acquaintance, Count ——, the Russian General, and had a long conversation with him. He had been in the memorable campaign of 1812, and had, for some years, laboured under a paralytic affection of the lower extremities. He assured me that in four or five weeks of these baths and douches, he had regained a good deal of power in his limbs; but his general strength had decreased, and he was about to repair to Schwalbach, in hopes that the chalybeate springs there would invigorate his constitution. We had a polite invitation to a fête at the palace that evening, from the gallant General.[31]