Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/39

 The Spitalbrunn supplies the baths of the Saint Bernard’s Hospital, and is not frequented by other invalids.

Which ever of the springs patients are recommandedrecommended [sic] to, they regularly come from six to eight o’clock. Some of them drink a few goblets in the evening. The interval prescribed between one beaker and the other being a quarter of an hour, scarcely more than nine or ten beakers can be taken during two hours. Such a quantity proves sufficient in most cases; many patients, however, going far beyond that number, begin earlier. Few places in Europe offer, upon such a small spot, a more remarkable diversity of ranks, professions, countries, tongues, religions and costumes. Medical doctrines, rational or empirical, never had any influence upon the number of its visitors, which has always been increasing.

Carlsbad has been often, and not improperly, called an elegant hospital. Though many invalids, unable to walk, drink in their lodgings, by far the greatest number attend the wells:

Abdominal diseases being here the most frequent, no where perhaps can jaundice and sickly complexions be seen under more forms and degrees. Most people attributing to the Sprudel an imaginary supremacy, melancholy, misanthropic and hypocondriacal patients shew a particular predilection for that fountain. If those sickly and sinister faces offer a painful sight, *