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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    period, been in the habit of prescribing their vise in loco, at the place itself where the waters spring. But by the modei'n system of supplying the natural mineral waters in bottles, filled and hermetically sealed at the springs themselves, with due care and surveillance, all or nearly all these natural waters may be exported, so that their beneficial use, in a coivrse of home treatment, is rendered possible, without any loss of their primary restorative and remedial qualities. But to this end, it is absolutely essential that the waters should be bottled on the spot, in their natural condition, as they issue from the spring, without any artificial treatment or manipulation of any kind whatever. Everything in the shape of the addition of arbitrary proportions of artificially prepared salts, or of overcharging with carbonic acid gas chemically generated, is therefore to be deprecated and prohibited. It is indisputable, however, that such practices are far from uncommon. They have a tendency to vitiate the valuable properties of the natural water, and to defeat the objects of its use; and the result has no doubt been to cause failure of the anticipated benefits, and to lower the reputation of the water as a remedial agent. Upon this point reference may be made to the deliberately expressed opinions of some of the highest authorities on hydro-therapeutics. Tichborne and Prosser-James, in their well known work on The Mineral Waters of Europe, writing on the therapeutics of table-waters, say:— It is an error to suppose that the value of a water is in proportion to the amount of gas it contains. A large quantity is expelled from the stomach almost as soon as swallowed, or else is liable to cause distress. Hence waters containing a moderate amount are found more digestible. On the danger of artificial waters the same authorities remark, ibid:— When we consider mineral waters from a medical aspect we cannot too strongly condemn an attempt to imitate the natural springs. Sir Henry Thompson, P.R.C.S., etc., in a clinical lecture on The Early History of Calculous Disease, and the Treatment best Adapted for its Prevention, delivered at University College Hospital, made the following remarks on the radical difference between natural and artificial mineral waters:— At the same time let me caution you against regarding the small doses of mineral waters as having any affinity, either in the matter of quantity, or by manner of administration, with what is understood as homoeopathic doses. Thus, for example, you know that you may give A an ounce of salts, or B half an ounce and you purge them ; but you may obtain the same effect with one-fifth of those quantities, if you give it as prepared in Nature's laboratory in the form of mineral water. It is a curious fact, which I give as an ultimate one, and without speculating hero on the cause of the difference You will, therefore, readily understand how essential it is