Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/82

 The human frame, endowed with a power of reaction, cannot be compared to a glass or earthen vessel, nor to any cavities of inanimate bodies; the physiological processes, which dissolve, elaborate and assimilate substances introduced in the alimentary tube, differ entirely from the chemical and physical operations taking place upon inorganic bodies; a patient, drinking, in one morning, twelve beakers of mineral water, swallows scarcely eighteen grains of their fixed parts; and animal substances, immerged in the Sprudel, take no incrustation, except when, like eggs and craw-fish, they are covered with a calcareous envelop.

Many patients, arriving here with the idea that the waters can attack their teeth, rub them, after each goblet, with a crust of bread, or with sage leaves. In 1826, I placed human teeth in the Sprudel, during a week, others during a fortnight. They were more or less incrustated, according to the length of their immersion, but, in removing the sediment, I found them perfectly white and sound. Teeth, covered with a very thin and weak enamel, though I never saw such accident, might perhaps be split, if the water was drunk as hot as it springs from the Sprudel (60° R. or 168° F.), but every one lets it cool, so that it is seldom swallowed warmer than 45° R. or 135° F. When the water touches the nerve, it excites sometimes pain in decayed or worn out teeth. A little milk, added to the water, blunts that effect. In general, patients with bad teeth and spongy gums,