The principal health-resorts of Europe and Africa for the treatment of chronic diseases / by Thomas More Madden.

  • Madden, Thomas More, 1838-1902.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principal health-resorts of Europe and Africa for the treatment of chronic diseases / by Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    CHAPTEK XXI. ON THE NATUEE AND EEMEDIAL EFFECTS OF MINEEAL AND THEEMAL WATEES. MiNEEAL springs are those which contain saline ingredients in such quantities, or in such combination, as to possess medicinal properties. They are classified into groups which bear some general resemblance in chemical composition or therapeutic action. A considerable number of the spas, however, are so complex in their character, that it would be difficult to say which ingredient so preponderates as to determine their nomenclature on chemical principles. More- over, we find some waters containing only a trace of any chemical ingredients producing well-marked remedial effects. If, on the other hand, we base our plan of classification on the therapeutic properties of the spas, we shall be equally liable to error, since the same waters occasion widely opposite effects, according to the doses they may be taken in, the condition of the patient, and a great variety of other circum- stances. Therefore, putting aside a strictly chemical classification of mineral waters as chimerical, and passing over, for the present, the division sometimes adopted of the spas, from their medicinal effects, I shall consider the various springs described in the succeeding chapters as divisible into chaly- beate, sulphurous, saline, iodated, earthy, and chemically indifferent mineral springs. Of these some are cold, and others thermal. The former contain a larger amount of gaseous and saline ingredients than the latter, and have