Natural mineral waters : their properties and uses.

  • Ingram & Royle (Firm)
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural mineral waters : their properties and uses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Source Le Cler flows from a subterranean vein at a lower level than that which supplies the other Coutrexdville springs (Sources du Pavilion, du Prince or den Bains, du Quai, and La Souveraine). It is situated about 100 metres (310 feet) higher in level than the last-named, butis their perfect analogue. The water of the Source Le Cler, secured and completely insulated by works recently executed, yields not less than 15,000 litres daily, clear and limpid, identical in taste and temperature with the other Contrexdville waters ; it is equally acceptable to the stomach, while in richness of mineral constituents it slightly surpasses them. But, notwithstanding its superior mineralisation, this water is digestible with extreme facility, and stimulates the digestive organs as well as all the secretions. Its selective action on the urinary organs is such that the quantity of liquid expelled exceeds that of the water imbibed. It acts as a perfect flush, irrigating the lumbar regions, and washing away those uric acid sediments which, by agglo- meration, constitute calculi At a more advanced stage, when, in fact, calculi have taken the place of the preliminary sand or initial gravel, the observed facts justify the assertion that this water has the property of penetrating those calculi of recent formation, of facilitating their passage through the urinary canals, by drawing them along, and pushing them, after having polished them, while at the same time it imparts to the mucous membrane a power of tolerance of their presence by the cessation of its irritability through the reduction of inflammation. This modifying action on the mucous membrane accounts for the favourable influence of the Le Cler water upon vesical catarrh. But it must not be thought, as some writers would have us believe, that the therapeutic effect of the Contrexdville waters ends with this mechanical flushing, con- sequent upon the copious imbibition of an easily digestible water. On the contrary, these waters, and particularly the Source Le Cler, by stimulating all the secretive organs, promote the process of elimination of all alimentary residues ; and it is by reason of this modification of the equilibrium between the entry and the discharge of nutritive substances, that it exercises so truly effective an influence on gouty diathesis, hepatic affections, diabetes, etc. In fact, all those diseases, nowadays classi- fied under the generic name of manifestations of uric acid diathesis, and that Professor Bouchard has so ably specified and described—diseases due to imperfect nutrition—are susceptible of favourable modification, and may be successfully treated by means of an agent which, like the Source Le Cler and other Contrexdville waters, so powerfully promotes the elimination of excess of uric-acid in the system. The foregoing brief particulars will suffice to show how valuable a resource is offered to therapeutics in the Source Le Cler. Source du Pavilion. The Contrexdville waters are cold, clear and colourless ; they deposit in the pipes and reservoirs an oily and ochreous sediment, and on contact with the atmospheric air their surface becomes covered -with an iridiscent film. They are fresh and agreeable to the taste, with an acidulated flavour, somewhat inky, leaving subsequently a styptic after-taste. Taken internally, they are rapidly absorbed. They bear carriage well. The Pavilion Spring may be regarded as typical of the Contrexdville mineral waters. It yields a calcareo-sulphated and bicarbonated water, alkaline, with a preponderance of lime-salts, and containing aperient salines in the form of sulphates of soda and magnesia, also iron and arsenic, together with traces of fluoride of calcium. This spring is used exclusively for drinking, and yields no less than 12.230 gallons per day, issuing at a normal temperature of 11-5° Centigrade (52-25° Fahr.), and having a density^of T029, or a little higher than that of distilled water. As regards its mineralisation, we note that Dr. Cruise, of Dublin, in s recent pamphlet on these waters, states that Dr. Tichborne's analysis of the important Contrexdville waters found that the solid constituents amounted to 16b'-7 grains per gallon, as compared with 299'5 found in the water taken fresh from the spring. But the accented analysis, as published, is that of Dr. Debray, as under :—