The mineral waters of Europe : including a short description of artificial mineral waters / by C.R.C. Tichborne and Prosser James.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mineral waters of Europe : including a short description of artificial mineral waters / by C.R.C. Tichborne and Prosser James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAPTER I. CHEMICAL CHARACTERS OF THE MINERAL WATERS, IN CLASSES. The classification of mineral waters is a subject that presents great difficulty, and has been treated in different ways. The alphabetical arrangement would perhaps get over all difficulties, but would hardly facilitate the inquiries of the medical man. Mineral waters often differ in their temperature when examined at their source. Thus we have all degrees, from the Malvern waters be- low the atmospheric temperature, to the boiling springs of Iceland—from the almost ice-cold waters of Silesia, to the hot Sprudel of Bohemia : attempts have been made to classify them from these degrees of temperature. Such a classification might amuse the crotchets of our an- cestors ; whilst of little use even to those who use the waters locally, it is utterly worthless for the purposes of these articles. Their general, or most marked chemical character ap- pears to us to present the most feasible method of classi- fying mineral waters. One well known work proposes to classify them on this principle : but suggests the rather crude division of sulphurous, chalybeate, and saline. We propose as the main or primary classes five, namely : 1, saline or aperient; 2, alkaline or antacid ; 3, ferru- ginous or chalybeate; 4, sulphurous; 5, potable or m D different.