Chap. VIII. relates to scrofula and glandular affections generally. In such complaints it is of the greatest consequence to conjoin the internal with the external use of the waters of Wildbad. These waters are much employed by people with goitre, and Drs. Fricker and Heim consider them very beneficial in enlargements of the liver, spleen, and even of the mesenteric glands.
Chap. IX. Wildbad appears to have attained some considerable reputation in female complaints. Next indeed in number to the class of lame and paralytic patients, which I saw around the baths and waters of this place, were the chlorotic females, whose countenances exhibited the “green and yellow melancholy” of Shakespeare’s “love-sick” maiden—
——“She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’th’bud,
Feed on her damask cheek.”
There are more ailments than love-sickness, however, which cause the youthful maid to “pine in thought,” and exchange all her lillies for the pallid rose—the sparkling expression for the lack-lustre eye—and the elasticity of youth for the languor of premature old age. For the irregularities and obstructions that generally lead to this chlorotic state, the baths and waters of Wildbad are strongly recommended. Dr. Heim avers that, of late years, he has only failed in one instance to bring these females to a state of regularity and health—where no organic disease existed. Although this is rather a startling assertion, yet the concourse of female invalids to this place, bearing such unequivocal marks of a particular class of ailments, offers a fair presumption that many receive benefit there, else the numbers would diminish instead of increasing from year to year. I can also easily believe that a course of these baths, with the daily ingurgitation of large potions of a simple diluent water, may remove many obstructions, and, at all events, bring the constitution into that condition in which some good chalybeate, as Schwalbach, Spa, or Brockenau, might exert a powerful influence on the restoration of health.
The new spring for drinking is at a temperature of 92°, and contains four grains of saline substances in the pint, of which two are muriate of soda or common salt. It is used like other thermal waters, and is slightly aperient, but chiefly alterative.
The public walks to the southward of the town, extend nearly a mile along the noisy Enz, and are very pleasant. A contemplative philosopher might there indulge his sublime speculations—the poet his “wayward fancies”—and the devotee his celestial meditations, with little interruption.
The counter-indications, or disorders not benefited, but aggravated by the waters of Wildbad, are not materially different from those mentioned under the head of other thermal springs—as plethora, or fulness—tendency to apoplexy, to hæmorrhage of any kind, or to engorgements or inflammations of any of the internal organs. Neither are they proper in cases of considerable debility. They are not to be used in inveterate catarrhal affections of the kidneys or bladder, attended with wasting of strength, and probably with organic disease—in chronic diarrhœa—diabetes—internal suppurations—confirmed phthisis—indurations of spleen or liver in an advanced stage—dropsies—scirrhus and cancer—biliary and urinary calculi—organic diseases of the heart—varicose veins—hypochondriasis and hysteria, with debility—original or idiopathic epilepsy, chorea, catalepsy and other convulsive affections of this nature—sterility dependent on organic disease of the reproductive viscera—alienation of mind, &c. On no account should women in a state of pregnancy use the baths or waters of Wildbad.
I have now presented the reader with all the information which I could collect on the spot, from the conversations and writings of those best acquainted with the nature and properties of the waters. Most of the English spa-goers will be disappointed in the magic effects of the baths, as somewhat highly-coloured by Dr. Granville—and will consider the locality as too sombre; while the appearance of the bathers and drinkers—being veritable invalids—many of them on crutches, and many apparently on their way to the grave—will prove anything but cheering to the British hypochondriac, and the sensitive nervous female. A considerable number of English leave Wildbad in a day or two after arriving there—and of the few who take the waters, the majority become alarmed at the spa-fever or irritation, abandoning the waters at the very time they are likely to prove serviceable.