Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/85

 patient, as well as madder gives a red colour to those of a cock or of a dog, fed some time upon that plant?

Dr. Hufeland, on the testimony of two unquestionable witnesses, saw with reason, in Mr. de F.’s case, a new proof of the power of our waters to dissolve intestinal obstructions, but the conclusion drawn by others from his report: that the Carlsbad waters soften and disjoin old fractures, was unwarranted and inconsiderate. In this case, between the fracture, which took place on the 12th of June, and the Carlsbad cure, commenced on the 4th of July, the interval was only two and twenty days, during which time no hard and solid callus can be formed. I never heard any similar case told at Carlsbad; none is on record; David Becher himself, to whose attention nothing escaped, mentions no accident of that sort, though in such a crowd of invalids, old fractured bones must be frequent; and even, since Mr. de F.’s case has been related by Dr. Hufeland, who did not draw the same conclusion from it as his readers have done, no practitioner, as far as I know, has made any similar observation.

We have seen that the constituent parts of our various springs are perfectly identic; that they only differ by their temperature and by more or less carbonic acid, which is always in inverted ratio to the degree of heat. In spite of the identity of their fixed, ingredients, the expressions of strong and mild fountains are in general used at Carlsbad, instead 6