Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/613

Rh amounts of salts and alkalines, the beneficial effect of bathing in their waters resulting mainly from their increased temperature (75° to 160°). These baths are efficacious especially in paralysis, articular and muscular rheumatism, old wounds, enervation, and decrepitude. The most noted are: Gastein, in Salzburg, Austria (eight springs, from 87° to 160°); Wildbad, in Würtemberg; Pfäfers and Ragatz, in Switzerland; Teplitz and Johannesbad, in Bohemia; Warmbrunn and Landeck, in Prussian Silesia; Schlangenbad, in Hesse-Nassau, applicable especially to hysteria and skin diseases; Plombières, Vosges, France, efficacious in gastralgia, rheumatism, and dartrous diseases of the skin; Bains, in Alsace; Alhama de Granada, in Spain; and San Martino, in Lombardy. In the United States the most noted of this class are: Hot springs (57 springs, from 93° to 150°), Hot Springs co., Ark., which resemble those of Gastein and Pfäfers; Healing springs, Bath co., Va., applicable to all ulcerated conditions; Hot springs (102° to 108°), Bath co., Va.; Tuscan springs (76°), Shasta co., Cal.; Holston springs (66½°), Scott co., Va.; and Lebanon springs, Columbia co., N. Y.—No complete analysis has yet been made of some valuable cold springs, such as the 16 Birchdale springs, near Concord, N. H., the waters of which are alterative, diuretic, and aperient; Parkersburg mineral wells, Wood co., W. Va., the principal constituents of which are sulphate of magnesia and sulphate of soda; Clarendon springs, Rutland co., Vt., used as a remedy in gravel, dyspepsia, and engorgement of the liver; Alleghany springs, Montgomery co., Va., and Shannondale springs, Jefferson co., W. Va., calcic waters. In F. V. Hayden's “Preliminary Report of the United States Geological Survey of Montana,” &c. (Washington, 1872), Dr. A. C. Peale, the mineralogist of the expedition, gives a catalogue of the thermal springs met with, among which he enumerates 10 chalybeates, averaging 129, near Ogden and the Great Salt lake, Utah; of calcareous springs, 5 in Lincoln valley, near Fort Hall, Idaho (75°), 6 in Madison co., Montana, 16 on Gardiner's river, Wyoming, and 1 on the east fork of the Yellowstone (111° to 142°); 15 sulphurous and acidulous springs (151° to 171°) in the same tract; 6 sulphur and chalybeate springs (181°) on Yellowstone lake; 60 salses or mud volcanoes and sulphurous springs (173° to 184°) near Mt. Washburn and Turbid lake, Yellowstone valley; 17 salses (175° to 178°) on Crater hills and Steamy point, Yellowstone valley; 49 silicious (155° to 166°) on Yellowstone lake and Madison river; a great number of carbonated or soda springs (50°) on Bear river, Utah; and 400 geysers and silicious springs (157° to 184°) in the geyser basin of the National park. Uses. Mineral waters are considered applicable to the treatment of chronic diseases only, as a rule, and are to be used during the inactivity of the disease. Medical advice is indispensable

in their selection and use, as change of air, diet, &c., are important coagents. Excesses of the table should be rigidly avoided during the treatment. The waters are usually taken before breakfast, the dose being gradually increased from one to four tumblers; but iron and alkaline waters may be taken several times a day, the latter with great advantage at bedtime. In some parts of France and Switzerland it is customary to drink while sitting in the bath, the usual time being two hours after breakfast. The stomach should be empty when the bath is taken. The regular temperature of the cold bath is 70° F. and below; of the warm bath, 92° to 98°; and of the hot bath, 102° to 110°. In the vapor and Russian bath the temperature is raised to 160°, and in the hot-air and the Turkish bath to 176°. The temperature of the body is so increased in these baths that the sudden transition to the cool shower bath and douche is soothing, and is followed under favorable conditions by copious perspiration. The mineral mud bath (85° to 100°) consists of mud taken from the marshy ground about the source of mineral springs. It is used chiefly in diseases of the skin, chronic rheumatism, and affections of the joints. When the symptoms of the “bathing crisis” appear, the use of mineral waters should be discontinued for a few days. A “small” or short cure requires three or four weeks, a “great” one five or six weeks. Mineral waters can be taken with benefit at any time of the year, but the season generally begins in May or June, and ends, according to the local climate, in September or October. After a season at the springs, the vineyards of Bingen, Dürkheim, Vevay, Montreux, and Meran are resorted to by many patients for an additional grape cure, the effect of which is generally cathartic.—For accounts of the mineral springs of Europe, see Durand-Fardel and E. Le Bost, Dictionnaire des eaux minérales (Paris, 1860); Althaus, “The Spas of Europe” (London, 1862); and in German, the works of Garless (1848), Posner (1853), Lersch (1855-'60), Weller (1860, who also publishes a yearly guide, Wegweiser), H. Helft (1862), Braun (1869), T. Hirsfeld (Der Cur-Salon, 1866-'72), and R. Rentwig (Badezeitung, 1869-'72). For the springs of the United States, see Bell, “Mineral and Thermal Springs of the United States and Canada” (1855), and Walton, “The Mineral Springs of the United States and Canada, with Analyses and Notes of the prominent Spas of Europe” (1873).  MINERAL WATERS, Artificial, imitations of mineral spring waters, made by dissolving the salts which constitute the basis of the natural mineral waters in ordinary water impregnated with gases, especially carbonic acid gas. Experiments in their manufacture were made as early as the 16th century, but they have been produced in perfection only within the past 50 years, since chemical analysis has become an operation of minute exactness. The merit of the discovery of their principles belongs to