Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/533

Rh diseases the cure depends rather upon a consensus of gentle influences, a sequence of impressions that, however slight, are wisely chosen and directed by the physician. And of these gentle influences those which come from the proper choice of diet and the right use of exercise are among the most important.

7. Bains, still in the Vosges, is a town of three thousand people, situated at the foot of the eastward slope of the mountains, and in a valley which is watered by a tributary of the Saône. There are eleven different springs, all warm, varying from 34·3° C. to 49° C. (94° to 120° Fahr.). Their main mineral constituent is the sulphate of soda; carbonate of soda and the chloride of sodium are also present, and both arsenic and iron have been found in very small quantities. These waters are limpid, colorless, and have no smell or taste, emerging from the grès vosgien which covers in shallow strata the granite substructure of the valley. They have been known and used, like many others of the French springs, since the time of the Romans, and their yield is abundant, alike for the baths, douches, steamings, inhalations, and internal uses which are prescribed at the establishments.

These establishments, two in number, include all of the principal springs. The first, the Bain Romain, which occupies the center of the town, is a handsome building, with galleries and colonnades, dressing-rooms, douches, and three piscines or bathing-tanks in the center. In the basement are huge tanks where the water is stored; hence it is lifted by pumps to reservoirs in the top of the building, and distributed to all of its different parts. The second establishment, the Bain des Promenades, is almost equally well appointed. Some two thousand guests come yearly to the place between the middle of May and the middle of September, the limits of the season; while the course of individual treatment is commonly fixed at twenty days.

These waters have a greatly stimulating effect, which is beneficial in cases of feebleness or of nervous dyscrasia; used as baths, they are more or less stimulating according to their temperature; after a certain time they produce a sedative effect, in this particular resembling the springs of Plombières, which are but ten miles distant. Taken inwardly, they produce at first more or less of the so-called "thermal fever," i. e., loss of appetite, a sense of weight at the stomach, and some constipation, and, like the waters of Plombières, they are very useful in dyspepsia, when this depends upon feebleness of the nervous system; in gout and rheumatism, and neuralgia and engorgement of the uterus. The choice between the two springs is between hill and plain, between the more fashionable and the quieter place. In either the patient will find a cure if he follows the course of hygiene and of water prescribed.

8. in the Haute-Marne, is the last in the group of springs which we are studying. The town lies some fifteen miles due south of Martigny, whence I made my way by private carriage; and