Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad/Refutation of some erroneous notions concerning Carlsbad
REFUTATION
OF
SOME ERRONEOUS NOTIONS
CONCERNING CARLSBAD.
Some hypocondriacal patients are inclined to believe, when they see the Sprudel-stones, and various incrustated toys exposed for sale, that such incrustations might equally be formed in their inside. That old fancy was already refuted, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, by Frederick Hoffmann, and later by Springsfeld, Becher and others. Such patients have in general a singular propensity to spread erroneous notions, and to impart to others their own anxiety; so that every one is to be pitied, who, listening to his fellow sufferers, is not guided by an enlightened and steady adviser. The anxiety caused by the apprehension of intestinal incrustations, should yield to the following observations:
The human frame, endowed with a power of reaction, cannot be compared to a glass or earthen vessel, nor to any cavities of inanimate bodies; the physiological processes, which dissolve, elaborate and assimilate substances introduced in the alimentary tube, differ entirely from the chemical and physical operations taking place upon inorganic bodies; a patient, drinking, in one morning, twelve beakers of mineral water, swallows scarcely eighteen grains of their fixed parts; and animal substances, immerged in the Sprudel, take no incrustation, except when, like eggs and craw-fish, they are covered with a calcareous envelop.
Many patients, arriving here with the idea that the waters can attack their teeth, rub them, after each goblet, with a crust of bread, or with sage leaves. In 1826, I placed human teeth in the Sprudel, during a week, others during a fortnight. They were more or less incrustated, according to the length of their immersion, but, in removing the sediment, I found them perfectly white and sound. Teeth, covered with a very thin and weak enamel, though I never saw such accident, might perhaps be split, if the water was drunk as hot as it springs from the Sprudel (60° R. or 168° F.), but every one lets it cool, so that it is seldom swallowed warmer than 45° R. or 135° F. When the water touches the nerve, it excites sometimes pain in decayed or worn out teeth. A little milk, added to the water, blunts that effect. In general, patients with bad teeth and spongy gums, will do well to have their mouth put in order before the use of the waters, and to continue, during it, the usual attentions commanded by cleanliness. Sage and bread are at least useless.
It is generally ascertained that our water’s dissolve the callus of fractured bones, and that opinion seems to have no other support than a single fact, faithfully related, but falsely interpreted. It has, however, produced as much sensation as if confirmed by daily experience. Gentlemen of the army, in the Austrian as well as in foreign services, feeling themselves more particularly interested in it, admit as an axiom, that: Whoever does not wish to experience the disjunction of a fractured bone, must not drink the Carlsbad waters. That erroneous opinion preventing people who have met with such accidents, from drinking the waters, in cases where they are evidently indicated, I shall relate the observation published by the celebrated Dr. Hufeland, which has alone given rise to this general belief (Hufeland’s Journal der praktischen Heilkunde, Bd. XLIII. 4. Stück, p. 135. 1816).
“On the 12th of June 1716. Mr. de F., when travelling, broke his arm. Fifteen days afterwards, the fracture being sufficiently solid, the patient, to whom, before the accident, Carlsbad had been ordered for abdominal complaints, was sent there by his physician. On his arrival, the callous matter was found regularly spread on the fracture; a proper bandage was applied by a skil surgeon, Dr. Brieske, physician to field-marshall Blücher; and Dr. Mitterbacher, of Carlsbad, to whom the patient was recommanded, allowed him, without hesitation, to begin the cure, on the 4th of July. He drank at first moderately, increasing gradually to fourteen beakers a day. The water operated much more upon the kidneys than upon the bowels, and produced now and then shooting pains in the fracture. The medical attendants observed very soon that the callus was turning soft; the patient however continued drinking; the shooting pains increased till; to their utmost surprize, they found, on the 9th of “July (6th day of the water treatment) the callus completely gone and the fractured parts moveable. The waters were then discontinued, and, with the help of a proper bandage, the local accident was completely healed in a few weeks. This is a most remarkable case. What prodigious activity must not that water have! What better proof do we want of its resolving quality, and of its power to destroy the reproductive quality of the lymph? Can we longer wonder that such a water dissolves more efficaciously than any other known remedy, the obstructions and coagulations of the bowels?”
The crystals of Carlsbad salt having been discovered, with the help of a strong microscope, in the perspiration of water-drinkers, why should not that salt have penetrated the bones of the above-mentioned patient, as well as madder gives a red colour to those of a cock or of a dog, fed some time upon that plant?
Dr. Hufeland, on the testimony of two unquestionable witnesses, saw with reason, in Mr. de F.’s case, a new proof of the power of our waters to dissolve intestinal obstructions, but the conclusion drawn by others from his report: that the Carlsbad waters soften and disjoin old fractures, was unwarranted and inconsiderate. In this case, between the fracture, which took place on the 12th of June, and the Carlsbad cure, commenced on the 4th of July, the interval was only two and twenty days, during which time no hard and solid callus can be formed. I never heard any similar case told at Carlsbad; none is on record; David Becher himself, to whose attention nothing escaped, mentions no accident of that sort, though in such a crowd of invalids, old fractured bones must be frequent; and even, since Mr. de F.’s case has been related by Dr. Hufeland, who did not draw the same conclusion from it as his readers have done, no practitioner, as far as I know, has made any similar observation.
We have seen that the constituent parts of our various springs are perfectly identic; that they only differ by their temperature and by more or less carbonic acid, which is always in inverted ratio to the degree of heat. In spite of the identity of their fixed, ingredients, the expressions of strong and mild fountains are in general used at Carlsbad, instead of warmer or cooler; innumerable patients attribute to them different effects, and are afraid to loose time so long as they drink what they call the mild or weak waters. Those erroneous opinions are easily rectified at Carlsbad by their medical adviser; but they may be attended with the most serious consequences, if foreign physicians, taking for granted that we have weaker and harmless springs, send us patients, who very soon experience that neither one spring nor the other can agree with them. Certain individuals have, no doubt, a kind of elective attraction for one source or for the other, and obtain from that spring all sorts of good effects, whilst another one will act perhaps differently. Such individualities must be attended to and particularly respected, but the closest attention to the effects of our various wells is insufficient for classing them a priori, according to the diseases in which they prove more or less useful. The great question, in sending patients to Carlsbad, is not to decide which source they should drink, but whether our waters are indicated or not. I have treated at full length this important subject, in the Almanach, for 1832, ch. III.
I have met with a few ignorant hypocondriacal patients, afraid of the green stuff surrounding our wells (Confervae thermales), because they suppose it to be vert-de-gris. We hope that such a fancy never can perplex any one who has read, in the present opuscule, the interesting observations of Mr. Corda upon those remarkable animal creatures.
