Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/198

 96 used; and in the publication of Dr. Martin Wall, are several cases in which their constant application to the parts affected was highly beneficial. I have not, myself, seen such very marked and decided benefit from them, in all the various forms of cutaneous affection detailed in the publication of that physician; but this, perhaps, has arisen from a difference in the mode of their application, for it is related, "Those who bathe for these complaints, usually go into the water with their linen on, and dress with it wet upon them:" a mode of procedure I have not ventured to recommend. Nevertheless, have witnessed many obstinate cases of lepra and psoriasis much ameliorated, and some entirely give way to the liberal external and internal use of the water; and I have also observed other cases, where it has failed of doing good. Upon the whole, I should imagine, that there are many delicate constitutions to which the constant and habitual use of hard water (and most spring waters are hard, some very much so indeed) proves positively injurious; and a trifling degree of irritation thus originated in a weak habit, conjoined, perhaps, with not a very pure air, may certainly be sufficient to excite some positive, perhaps scrofulous, or other, complaint. In such cases, the really medicinal effects derived from a residence at Malvern, may be easily understood.

Chalybeate Water.—At Great Malvern there is a chalybeate spring, which so far partakes of the character of the pure spring waters, that it contains but little earthy impurity. The iron contained in it is a proto-carbonate, and the water acts as a mild