288. CARLSBAD WATER is hot, saline, and chalybeate, having an unpleasant alkaline and bitter taste, though scarcely any smell. Its constant temperature is 165°. It contains chalk, Glauber’s salt ([203]), common salt, and carbonat of soda ([201]), together with a small portion of iron; and carbonic acid gas, or fixed air ([26]), in considerable quantity.
The town of Carlsbad, situated on the river Eger, in Bohemia, and its springs (which have the name of Caroline baths), received their appellation from the Emperor Charles the Fourth, who is said to have himself discovered the latter, in the year 1370, whilst hunting; and, since that period, few waters have more engaged the attention of chemists and physicians than these. Carlsbad is now much frequented during the summer months, and has good accommodations as a watering place. Its water is remarkable for a rapid and copious deposition of calcareous earth, which takes place always on cooling, and forms a very hard and beautiful crust on the inner surface or tube of any channel through which it flows; and forms petrifactions round moss, pieces of straw, or other extraneous substances which are put into the stream, even for so short a time as twenty-four hours. All the iron which the fresh water contains is also precipitated by cooling, and rather sooner than the calcareous earth. A very fine laminated calcareous stone in variegated colours is thus formed in large masses around the channel of the stream, which, when polished, is almost equal in beauty to jasper.
Of the hot springs of this neighbourhood the principal is called the Sprudel. It boils up, with great violence, and discharges about 352 cubic feet of water hourly, through a curious natural vault or incrustation which it has gradually formed. This water supplies the greater number of the baths. The other springs are, in general, of much lower temperature: they do not exceed from 114° to 125°, and they differ somewhat from each other in their chemical properties. They all contain a large portion of carbonic acid gas, or fixed air, and this is given out in such quantity by the water, that it fills several caverns, in the rocks adjoining to the springs, rendering them fatal to all animals which incautiously enter them.
The waters of Carlsbad are used for the removal of a great variety of disorders, but particularly such as are connected with indigestion. They are likewise used in obstructions of the bowels, and diseases of the kidneys. About five pints, divided into fourteen portions, are, on an average, drunk by each individual every day.
The Sprudel spring is better than that of any mineral waters which are employed medicinally. It requires to be considerably cooled before it can either be used as a bath, or drunk. Its heat is such that it is occasionally employed, in place of water artificially heated, for several domestic purposes, such as the scalding of fowls and hogs, the feathers and hair of which it immediately loosens.
Several hundred pounds weight of Glauber’s salt are annually prepared from this water.
6. SIMPLE SALINE WATERS.
289. SEDLITZ WATER is very salty and bitter. It contains a small portion of chalk, some sulphat of lime ([192]), carbonat of magnesia, muriat of magnesia, and a very great proportion of Epsom salt ([199]), to which its bitter taste and medicinal virtues are principally attributed.
The spring for which the village of Sedlitz, in Bohemia, has long been celebrated, was, for many years, wholly neglected by the inhabitants, on account of the bitter and nauseous taste of its water, which rendered it unfit for nearly all domestic purposes. Its virtues, as a medicine, were first brought into notice about the year 1721, by Hoffman, the celebrated Prussian physician.
This water is considered a valuable remedy in cases of indigestion, for removing scorbutic humours, and in several other complaints.