Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/75

 afflicted by such diseases. The effect of our waters is powerful, when those concretions do not overpass the diameter of the urinary passages, but little is to be expected from their lithontriptic action upon bigger stones. Their solidity and composition being very different, the effect of the water cannot be the same upon all, and we have not the means of ascertaining their nature in the human body. The best authors, particularly Becher, pretend, and many cases have confirmed to me the truth of their observation, that our springs correct and destroy the tendency to a formation of stones (lithiasis), and of late French lithotomists and lithotritists, among them Dr. Civiale himself, have sent to Carlsbad patients successfully operated, to prevent the reproduction of calculi.

Arthritic and gouty disorders, every where so frequent and so cruel, find here essential relief, and sometimes their complete removal. Becher, after thirty years practice, affirmed that one third of the patients he had treated at Carlsbad, suffered more or less from that morbid principle. A physician,