Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/53

 Tempted by the Reports which the latter published in 1816, I established, in 1817, at Vienna, fumigating rooms, and sent a great number of my improved boxes to medical practitioners in most countries of Europe, and even two to London, for public and private establishments. The good effects of those fumigations, the perfection of the apparatus, suggested soon the idea of applying medically the steam of various hot wells. Carlsbad was one of them, and no where perhaps could one dispose of more copious vapours. On my arrival there, in Mai 1826, I found the walls of a new building erected for that purpose, above the source of Hygiaea. Knowing the experience I had acquired at Vienna in that branch of medical practice, my advice was requested by Government for the construction of the necessary boxes, and other furnitures. The Vienna apparatus were adopted, with the modifications which a vapour so different from the sulfureous fluid required; six of them and twelve small rooms compose the establishment. Some additions, but no corrections, have since taken place. The partial application of a steam-douche; the possibility of taking a whole bath or a half-bath; of applying partially the vapour to the superior or to the lower extremities, to the breast and to the ears, have given to the establishment a high degree of perfection, and met with general approbation.

We are hitherto rather deficient in the application of the water-douche, but the improvement of that 4