Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/530

514 Bussang is the headquarters for mountain excursions in the Vosges. The Ballons d'Alsace and Servance, with their wonderful views of the Swiss Alps, are but a few miles away, and Gérardmer, with its mountain-lake, is a day's excursion. I mention these local attractions, for at every mineral spring where such charms of mountain scenery exist, they form potent influences among those that are enlisted for the patient's cure. One can not find a more quietly delightful spot than Bussang.

These waters have been known and used for centuries. They are delicious to the taste, sparkling, cold, and strongly tonic, containing the bicarbonate of iron, manganese, and some arsenic. As in the excellent artificial Hygeia waters, the strong charge of contained carbonic-acid gas acts most beneficially as a digestive stimulant. They are used only internally as yet, though a bathing establishment is now in construction, which the courteous manager of the springs, M. Zimmermann, told me would be ready for use in the summer of 1886.

The waters are used for the following therapeutic purposes:

(a.) They are especially helpful to the digestion. In consequence they cure the anemia of mal-nutrition, and some forms of obstinate chronic diarrhœa. In one case of the latter category which came under my knowledge while in Bussang, a cure was wrought after years of suffering and prostration.

(b.) The waters of Bussang are an efficient tonic for delicate invalids, and especially for persons of the lymphatic constitution. They are exported; but they throw down a part of their iron after being kept for a time.

4. in the Vosges.—Coming out of the mountains to the rolling country at the foot of the Vosges, and entering the valley of the Vair, we find a very interesting and completely appointed establishment, mostly of recent date, at Vittel. The springs flow in the middle of a fine park, at an elevation of 1,102 feet above sea-level. They have been known but about twenty-five years, but they attract a multitude of guests. The town has 1,343 inhabitants; the air is pure, and there is a mild mountain climate. The establishment is under the direction of the brothers Bouloumié, of whom one, the accomplished superintending physician, speaks English well. There are a casino and a theatre, as well as every device in the way of bathing and of douches; and the place is lively, cheerful, and in every way attractive—a pleasant place of sojourn.

The waters are cold, and are either predominantly iron or calcic; they belong by their constitution to a group of neighboring springs, of which Contrexéville and Martigny are the other members. They are very abundant and limpid, with but little taste; they throw down a red deposit upon the marble tanks and basins. In composition these waters are of the type of the Carlsbad waters; but they are milder in