Observations on the nature, the use and abuse of the Cheltenham waters : including some conjectures and queries on different saline compositions / by J. Smith.

  • Smith, John, 1721-1797.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature, the use and abuse of the Cheltenham waters : including some conjectures and queries on different saline compositions / by J. Smith. 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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    complaints, that after the conftitution has been un- burthened by the operation of the Cheltenham pur- gative, and the powers of the circulation as it were liberated, they have been enabled to propel the un- fettled acrimony more plentifully towards the fkin, its ufual outlet; and the fecretory veflels there, be- ing relaxed by the fame operation, what the purga- tive alone could not carry off, has been tranfmitted and expelled by that emunftory. The increafe of the eruption for awhile, after drinking thefe waters, has been adduced by the fa- vourers of the doflrine of alteratives, as a proof of their operation ; not refleding, that in many other inftances of acrimony floating in the conftitution, evacuation alone frequently determines its courfe to the parts where it had been ufed to flow; as is ex- perienced, particularly in gouty habits, where by opening a vein, or adminiftering a gentle cathartic, a paroxyfm frequently cnfues. But farther, we know that many waters are more ftrongly impregnated with thofe very ingredients to which the alterative virtues of the Cheltenham wa- ters are afcribed than they are; I mean the fixed air, or serial acid, and the fteel that are found in their compofition : fuch as the cold chalybeates of Spaw, Pyrmonr, Tunbridge, and others difperfed all over the globe. And yet thofe waters are not found to be endowed with the deobftruent qualities of the Cheltenham waters, excepting in a few cafes, where the