The salt sulphur springs, Monroe County, Va.

  • Mütter, Thomas D. (Thomas Dent), 1811-1859.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The salt sulphur springs, Monroe County, Va. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    slow and gradual, it often relieves and cures the disease; if, on the other hand, it be too intense, it exasperates, and often to a fatal termination, all the sources of irritation. It is obvious that mineral waters are not adapted to acute diseases of any kind, inasmuch as they augment the activity of the circulation, and thus keep up or even increase the inflammatory action upon which these diseases depend; they are on the other hand highly beneficial in chronic complaints, and the good effects arising from their use in such cases are the more striking as well as durable in proportion as they are brought about gradually. The removal of the disease is sometimes indicated by a critical effort of nature, which is manifested in the different secretions, or by the appear- ance of eruptions on the surface of the body. Sometimes, on the contrary, the cure takes place silently, or without any apprecia- ble change in any of the functions; the patient getting daily bet- ter and better without being able to account for it. There are some chronic diseases, however, in which mineral waters do harm: such are aneurisms of the heart and large arteries, can- cerous affections, confirmed tubercular consumption, and some complaints of the brain. From the fact that almost all mineral waters stimulate more or less powerfully the whole system, some physicians have attributed all the benefit derived from their employment to this circumstance alone. Such an opinion is by no means correct; for, although this action is probably the most striking, still it is not the only one. It is very certain that besides stimulating the organism at large, they, (according to the difference of their pro- perties,) direct their impressions specially upon different organs. Thus some, as the sulphurous, act principally upon the skin and chylopoietic viscera, others as the chalybeate, upon the kidney and bladder. It is moreover generally admitted, I believe, that when absorbed and conveyed throughout the economy, they have the property of changing the consistence as well as the composition of our fluids, thereby accomplishing what is called an alterative action—and often too without producing much excitement.— Lastly, if mineral waters acted only as stimulants, why does not the substitution of ovory other stimulant produce the same result? The degree of excitement occasioned depends upon a variety of circumstances; for instance, the temperature of the