BATHING LOCALITIES.
In considering the various bathing localities it is only natural that
we should begin with London. We have no intention of speaking in detail
of the various baths with which private enterprise has provided the
inhabitants of London, for such a course would be quite foreign to the
intentions of this little work, which is intended merely to furnish
the reader with a few general principles which shall be of use to him
in selecting a bath. There is no kind of bath which cannot be got in
London, and between a dip in the Serpentine and the elaborate process
of the Turkish bath the bather has a wide choice. In proportion to
its size and the number of its inhabitants, however, the bathing
accommodation is very bad. The Thames is still a foul stream, and few
care to plunge into the sewage which flows down from Richmond and
surges back again from Barking. It is true that we have one large
swimming bath floating close to Hungerford Bridge, the water of which
is filtered in an ingenious way; but it may safely be said that, were
the water of the river cleaner, we should have fifty such baths instead
of one. We have often thought that a bathing establishment on a really
grand scale would be a success in London, and we hope some day to see
baths in our great metropolis, which should remind one of the palatial
establishment of Caracalla. A combination of a swimming bath, private
baths, Turkish baths, &c., with a first-rate gymnasium, reading-room,
lecture hall, and refreshment room, would surely meet with sufficient
patronage to pay, and we even believe that the introduction of
sea-water for such a purpose (an undertaking which has been started
more than once) would be sufficiently appreciated to ensure a dividend
to the promoters.
England is naturally very well supplied with sea-bathing resorts,
and it is possible to get a sea-bath in our island combined with any
variety of climate, from the cold and bracing to the mild and relaxing.
Sea-air, the great value of which is well understood as a curative
agent, has certain peculiarities. It is necessarily the purest air
that can be got, and when the breeze is off the sea the air comes to
the shore practically uncontaminated and free from the exhalations
of animals or furnaces. It is said to be very rich in ozone, and
it certainly contains fine saline particles supplied to it by the
sea-spray, and possibly small quantities of iodine, which give to the
sea-breeze that peculiar odour which it undoubtedly possesses. Sea-air
is dense, and the barometer stands at its maximum at the sea-level.
Sea-air is warmer than the air of inland places, and it is more
equable in its temperature owing to the comparatively slight changes
in temperature which the sea itself undergoes. The effect of sea-air
is very stimulating, and sojourners by the sea have their appetites
increased and their vital functions quickened. While speaking of
sea-air we must remind the reader that the air of the seaside places
is often far from good, owing to the defective sanitary arrangements.
There are not a few towns on our coasts, the sewers of which are taken
out on to the beach where visitors most do congregate, and the smell
of sewage at low tide is often far from pleasant. In selecting a
sea-bathing place it is of importance to attend, not only to the aspect
and general situation of the town, but to inform oneself whether or
not it be thoroughly drained, the sewers being carried either inland
to a proper sewage farm or far out to sea well beyond low-water mark;
whether the water supply for drinking purposes be good and abundant,
and whether the general cleanliness of the town is properly attended
to. Climate is a very local phenomenon, and it is of as much importance
to see that the bedroom and sitting-room which an invalid has to
occupy are well ventilated and have a good aspect, as to attend to the
latitude and general aspect of the locality chosen. It is of little use
to send a patient to the sea if he has to spend the greater part of
his time in small rooms made unbearable by gaslights or the defective
drainage of the house; and an invalid with delicate lungs will derive
but little benefit from a sojourn in the south if his windows face the
north and he is afraid to open them.
As to the time of year at which sea-baths should be taken, that of
course depends upon the locality visited. On the east coast, in
situations which are exposed to winds from the north and east, bathing
is only advisable during the three summer months of June, July, and
August. On the west coast it is possible to begin a little earlier,
and continue a little later; and in some situations in the south, the
season may be said to extend from the middle of April to November. In
these latter places, the temperature at midsummer is often unpleasantly
high, and the bathing season falls into abeyance for a time. There
are many considerations which influence people in their choice of a
bathing station, such as the size of a town, or whether it be gay or
quiet; its distance from London, its accessibility, the accommodation,
the expense, &c. A more important point, perhaps, is the nature of the
bottom, whether it be sandy or shingly. The great popularity of the
bathing resorts on the north coast of France and the Belgian coast is
due to the great expanse of fine sand of which the bottom is composed.
In selecting a bathing place it is advisable, if reliable information
is not forthcoming from those who know it well, to look at the Ordnance
map of the town and district, and learn from an inspection of it,
not only the direction in which the locality looks sea-ward, but the
nature of the immediate surroundings of it; the position and height of
cliffs and hills, and the amount of protection against cold or heat.
The nature of the soil should also be ascertained, and the prevailing
character of the vegetation, and, if possible, the amount of rainfall
and the mean temperature of summer and winter.
Many watering places possess, in a very restricted area, many climates.
Let us look at such a watering place as Bournemouth, and we shall be
able to explain what we mean. Bournemouth is a town of some six or
seven thousand inhabitants, built on a sandy soil, surrounded by pine
woods. It faces the south; the average rainfall is 30 inches per annum;
the temperature is equable, and frosts are comparatively rare, the mean
night temperature in the month of January being 35·6. The town is built
upon two bold cliffs, with a dip between them, and the surface of the
soil being very uneven, it is thus possible to get almost any climate.
In the dip between the cliffs are situations exposed only to the south,
and protected from all cold winds; and others facing only to the north.
On the east cliff one may live in a pine-wood, with the advantages of
moderate elevation, a southern aspect, and the protection of trees
which have the double advantage of being evergreen, and possessing a
foliage which does not rot and decompose in autumn. On the west cliff,
again, one may live in a house exposed to every wind that blows, in a
climate which may very justly be spoken of as bracing.
It seems unnecessary to catalogue the various sea-bathing resorts
in Great Britain. They are numberless, and intending visitors are
influenced mainly by questions of accessibility and accommodation.
Those on the east coast are mostly bracing, those on the west are
more relaxing, while those on the southern coast are mostly warm and
available during the winter months. We must refer our readers to the
various guide-books and gazetteers for detailed information.
We have next to consider the various mineral baths scattered about
Europe, and it must be admitted that the arrangements for bathing at
the various sources of mineral waters are much better carried out on
the Continent than in this country. In any course of treatment bathing
is generally only one element of the regimen to which an invalid is
directed to submit. Diet, climate, rest, and exercise, and the internal
administration of medicine or of mineral water, often are called into
requisition to perform their share in the cure; and while a patient
is bathing, and by bathing is stimulating or facilitating his animal
functions, it is of the greatest importance that he should live the
healthiest life imaginable. At most of the German baths a somewhat
strict surveillance of the bathers is maintained, and at those which
have the greatest reputation, it is almost impossible to get, in the
shape of food, anything of which the local physicians would disapprove.
It is too often the habit of the Englishman to go to a bath without
taking any advice as to his general mode of life while bathing, or
even whether he may expect benefit or harm from the treatment he is
prescribing for himself. The foreigner, on the other hand, submits in
all things to authority, and while “undergoing a cure” he is content to
have his time of rising and going to bed, his meals, his exercise, his
baths, and other treatment, all accurately regulated for him. It is on
this account, no doubt, that the German and French baths have so great
a reputation, for while visiting them the guests live by rule just as
athletes do in this country when they wish to bring themselves to the
highest pitch of health attainable in view of some muscular contest.
When the Englishman is told to visit this or that continental spring,
he may well ask, as did the captain of the host, “Are not Abana and
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May
I not wash in them, and be clean?” He must remember, however, that, as
in Naaman’s case, obedience to the directions of the prophet resulted
in a cure, so he must seek out a spring where he will find a prophet;
to whose dictation he must be willing for a time in all things to
submit.
When people visit a mineral spring they generally do so with the double
object of drinking the water and of bathing in it; with the drinking of
mineral water we have, in this volume, nothing to do, but merely with
bathing, and the reader will have gathered from the previous chapters,
that, when bathing only is concerned, the exact composition of the
water is not a matter of very great importance; since all baths act in
the same way, by stimulating the skin, and the water of the bath is
probably _never absorbed_. It is important to insist upon this point,
because we find in several bath-puffs the assertion that their effect
is due to the absorption through the skin of the material dissolved in
the water of the bath. Such an assertion is contrary to the teaching of
our leading physiologists. At all sea-bathing places the climate is, in
one respect, the amount of barometric pressure, similar. The advantage
of mineral baths over sea-baths very greatly lies in the fact that we
are not only able to choose our water but also to choose our climate,
and to have either a mountain climate with low barometric pressure, or
a sea-level climate with a high barometric pressure, or a climate where
the barometric pressure is intermediate between these two extremes.
We must, in order to bring the effects of mountain climates vividly
before the mind of the reader, refer again to the comparison which we
have made elsewhere between the burning of fuel in a furnace, and the
combustion which is constantly going on in our bodies. Experiments made
by Professors Tyndall and Frankland on the combustion of candles at
different altitudes, seem to give the clue to the explanation of the
effects of mountain air upon our bodies. These gentlemen burnt candles
of equal weight, and under similar conditions at Chamouni, and also on
the top of Mont Blanc, which is 12,000 feet higher. They found that
the amount of candle consumed in equal periods of time was the same in
both situations, but that on the top of the mountain the candle gave
out considerably _less light_ than it did in the valley. The diminution
of the light was attributed with justice to the _completeness_ of the
combustion, for the light emitted by a flame is mainly due to the
unconsumed particles of carbon in a state of incandescence. Mountain
air, being much more rarified than the air of low-lying valleys,
contains much less oxygen in proportion to volume, but its lesser
density seems to enable the oxygen to assume, as it were, a greater
activity.
It has also been found that bodies lose heat less rapidly in rarified
atmospheres, so that presumably there is less need for heat-production
on the mountain than on the plain; so that in mountain climates the
body is saved a certain proportion of the combustion necessary for the
generation of heat.
Mountain air is pure, and removed from miasmata and exhalations,
whether from marshes or (being usually sparsely inhabited) men. It is
usually still and seldom foggy. The variations of temperature are very
great and very rapid, the visitor having often to undergo, within a
few hours, a tropical and an arctic climate. These rapid variations
serve probably to stimulate vital processes, and there can be little
doubt that they are important factors in the general effect produced by
mountain climates.
The following notes made during a sojourn at Davos in Switzerland may
serve to bring some of the above facts in a more concrete form before
the reader. “The height above sea-level is between 5000 and 6000 feet,
and the barometer stands at about an average of 620 millimètres,
instead of 760, which is its average height at the sea-level, so that
the weight of the atmosphere is only 620/760, or rather more than
three-fourths of what to most of us is its normal weight. The result
of this is that under the influence of the sun’s rays evaporation is
marvellously rapid. The dew is gone in an instant, and the vapours of
the early morning seem to vanish at the first touch of the solar heat.
Thus it follows that although the rainfall is considerable, the dryness
of the air is, during the main part of the day, nearly absolute. The
range of temperature is apt to be very great, and the thermometer,
even in the height of summer, is frequently below freezing point in
the early morning and in the shade, while in the sunshine, towards
midday, the heat is simply scorching. For the most part, however, the
temperature is very pleasant in summer; and even invalids, if properly
provided with wraps, may spend almost all the hours of daylight out
of doors. The obvious results on a healthy person of living in such a
climate are (1) a slight increase in the rate of pulse and respiration;
(2) a craving for and an ease in performing muscular exercise; and
(3) a marked increase of the appetite, with a general feeling of
exhilaration. The air acts, in fact, as a powerful stimulant. Ladies,
and those who are not able to take much exercise, often have a
difficulty in sleeping, but this is never of long continuance. Owing,
it is said, to the diminished atmospheric pressure, the cutaneous
blood-vessels dilate, and the complexion becomes (with the help of the
sun) exceedingly ruddy, a fact which is particularly noticeable in the
inhabitants, whose red cheeks strike a stranger with astonishment.”
There are of course many things to be considered in making selection
of a bath besides the height above sea-level. Attention must be paid
to the local configuration of the district, and the sanitary condition
of the town or village in which the healing spring is situated. It is
manifestly unadvisable for an invalid who has been sent to the Alps
for the benefit of a mountain climate to settle down in some narrow
gorge, exposed perhaps, only to one wind, into which the sun only peeps
at midday, where the climate knows no medium between the two extremes
of heat and cold, where the river perhaps has been converted into an
open sewer by the inhabitants, and where the population is a mixture
of the Goitrous and the Cretinous. Such localities are to be found,
and it may well happen that the invalid may go to the bath to be cured
of his gout, and return with typhoid or ague. Some few years back the
writer was travelling in the Vosges mountains, and stopped a night at
a well-known watering-place, taking up his abode in the Bad-haus. The
situation of the town was extremely picturesque; the valley in which
it lay was verdant, the hills were well clothed with foliage, and the
mineral springs of the district were such as might well be recommended
to many patients. The inhabitants, however, had seen fit to turn the
lovely stream which meandered through the valley into a sewer. Into
it abominations of every kind were thrown, and its pebbly bottom
had become obscured by broken crockery, old tin pots, old boots and
shoes, and other refuse. The swine were driven into it every morning
as if on purpose to defile it, and what should have been one of the
chief attractions of the district had become a pestilential nuisance,
exhaling filthy odours, and fit only to be bridged over and hidden
absolutely from the light. It is not sufficient in making choice of a
bathing place to consider only those dry facts which are capable of
being stated in figures, but the intending bather should seek reliable
information as to the sanitary condition of the town, as well as of the
hotel or lodging-house which he proposes to inhabit. This information
is only to be got from disinterested patients who have made a sojourn
in the locality. Guide books are seldom to be trusted, and special
treatises on the virtues of this or that bath are to be regarded as
the works of a fervid imagination in the absence of confirmatory
evidence. The most potent cause in establishing the popularity of this
or that bathing place has been the heat of the water, and there is
perhaps no hot spring in Europe which was not used for bathing by the
Romans, or which has not been used from times of remote antiquity by
the inhabitants of the district. It is so convenient and so cheap to
have hot water ready to hand without the necessity of huge furnaces,
enormous chimneys, expensive boilers, and endless pipes, that it is not
surprising that such a valuable natural gift should be appreciated.
The best known hot bath in this country is the one at _Bath_, in
Somersetshire, the water of which proved so attractive to the
Romans that they founded the city of _Aquæ Solis_ here, in the 1st
century of the Christian era. It is needless for us to dwell upon
the popularity of Bath. There are four hot springs here which vary
in temperature between 120° Fahr. and 104° Fahr. The supply of water
is ample and abundant, and the accommodation for guests such as can
hardly be surpassed. The corporation of the city have lately erected a
magnificent suite of baths, and if they will but turn their attention
to the condition of the river Avon, and rigidly enforce the provisions
of the Pollution of Rivers Act, Bath may again become as popular as it
was in the days of Beau Nash. The elevation of Bath above the sea-level
is only about 100 feet. The constituents of the Bath water are chiefly
sulphate of lime with a little carbonate of iron, together with some
free carbonic acid and nitrogen. It has been called an earthy water,
but perhaps it is better to regard it as a simple hot water, the chief
virtue of which is its warmth.
_Buxton_, in Derbyshire, is situated nearly 1000 feet above the
sea-level in an open hollow surrounded by hills. There is good reason
to believe that the water of Buxton was known to the Romans. The
temperature of the Buxton water is 82° Fahr. The amount of saline
ingredients is but small. The water is, however, impregnated with a
large quantity both of carbonic acid and nitrogen gas. The town is
amply provided with accommodation both for bathing and lodging.
At _Clifton_, near Bristol, there are springs having a temperature
of 74° Fahr., and at _Mallow_, in Ireland, is a spring having a
temperature of about 70° Fahr., and containing, like the water of
Buxton, a large quantity of free nitrogen gas. A great deal has been
written about the virtues of free nitrogen in water, but without, as it
seems to us, sufficient evidence.
There are many hot springs in Europe which are very largely frequented
by invalids. We can, however, do little more than tabulate the chief,
indifferent, and earthy thermal springs, giving the chief facts
concerning each.
At _Leuk_, in Switzerland, situated at the foot of the Gemmi Pass,
we find a water possessing a natural temperature of 102° Fahr. to
120° Fahr., situated 4600 feet above the sea-level. The water is
indifferent, and it is the custom here for bathers to remain many hours
consecutively in the water. Ladies and gentlemen bathe in the same
bath, and it is no uncommon thing for the bathers to be seen taking
their luncheon or playing dominoes upon floating tables.
At _Pfaffers_ and _Ragatz_, near the town of Coire, in Switzerland, are
found indifferent springs, situated between 1500 and 2000 feet above
the sea-level, and having a temperature of 100° Fahr.
_Gastein_ is a much frequented and very fashionable bath in the
Austrian Salzkammergut, some twelve or thirteen hours’ drive from
Salzburg. The height above sea-level is 3300 feet, and the temperature
of the water varies from 96° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.
_Bormio_, at the foot of the Stelvio Pass, on the southern slope of the
Alps, has an altitude of over 4000 feet, and water of a temperature of
104° Fahr.
_Wildbad_, in the Black Forest, has been for many years a favourite
bath with the English. The elevation is 1300 feet, and the temperature
of the water a little over 100° Fahr.
_Wiesbaden_, the capital of Nassau, possesses both hot and cold
springs. The former have a temperature of 160° Fahr., and contain a
fair amount of chlorides. The town is beautifully situated among the
Taunus Hills, and has an elevation of 300 feet above the sea-level.
_Teplitz_, in Bohemia, is a fashionable bathing resort. The town
is well ordered, and healthfully situated, being 600 feet above
the sea-level, and supplied with natural thermal springs, having a
temperature ranging from 78° Fahr. to 120° Fahr.
_Schlangenbad_, among the Taunus Hills, is a quiet bathing-place, with
a natural tepid water having a temperature ranging between 80° and 90°
Fahr. The Schlangenbad water only contains 2-1/2 grains of solids to
the pint, so that it may safely be regarded as an “indifferent” spring.
Sir Francis Head, the author of the ‘Bubbles from the Brunnens of
Nassau,’ visited Schlangenbad in 1836, and we feel constrained to make
the following extract from his work, as typically illustrating the kind
of belief which gathers round a natural spring:--
“In the history of the little Duchy of Nassau, the discovery of this
spring forms a story full of innocence and simplicity. Once upon a time
there was a heifer, with which everything in nature seemed to disagree.
The more she ate the thinner she grew; the more her mother licked her
hide, the rougher and the more staring was her coat. Not a fly in
the forest would bite her; never was she seen to chew the cud, but,
hidebound and melancholy, her hips seemed actually to be protruding
from her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew; what could
cure her no one could divine. In short, deserted by her master and
her species, she was, as the faculty would term it, ‘given over.’ In
a few weeks, however, she suddenly reappeared among the herd, with
ribs covered with flesh, eyes like a deer, and skin sleek as a mole’s;
breath sweetly smelling of milk, saliva hanging in ringlets from her
jaw! Every day seemed to re-establish her health, and the phenomenon
was so striking that the herdsman, feeling induced to watch her,
discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her way in secret
into the forest, until she reached an unknown spring of water, from
which, having refreshed herself, she quietly returned to the valley.
This trifling circumstance, scarcely known, was almost forgotten by
the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began to show exactly the same
incomprehensible symptoms as the heifer. Mother, sisters, friends,
father, all tried to cure her, but in vain, and the physician had
actually
‘Taken his leave with sighs and sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow,’
when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, prevailed upon her
at last to try the heifer’s secret remedy. She did so, and in a very
short time, to the utter astonishment of her friends, she became one of
the stoutest and roundest young women in the duchy.” Sir Francis Head
goes on to describe how he was conducted along subterranean passages to
the source of the baths, and was astonished to find serpents swimming
in the water, and still more astonished to hear his cicerone declare,
“_C’est ce qui donne la qualité à ces eaux!_” Schlangen, or serpents,
are very common in this part of the duchy of Nassau, and hence the name
Schlangenbad.
_Baden-Baden_ is at once one of the most frequented and most
picturesque baths in Europe. The temperature of the water varies from
115° Fahr. to 144° Fahr, and the elevation above the sea-level is 616
feet. The waters contain only 22 grains of solid ingredients to the
pint, the chief of which is common salt (16-1/2 grains).
The celebrated hot purgative water of _Carlsbad_, although formerly
used for bathing, is now chiefly employed for drinking.
Bathing is carried on to a very large extent at _Vichy_ (in the
Department of Allier, in France), although these waters are chiefly
used as internal remedies.
_Plombières_, among the Vosges Mountains, has an elevation of 1310
feet. The water contains only 2 grains of solid ingredients to the
pint, but the temperature is high, varying from 80° Fahr. to 160° Fahr.
Some of the hot springs at _Ems_, such as the Fürstenbrunnen, with a
temperature of 95° Fahr., and the Neuequelle, with a temperature of
117° Fahr., are used for bathing.
At _Aix-les-Bains_, in Savoy, 768 feet above the sea-level, will be
found two hot springs, varying in temperature from 106° Fahr. to 116°
Fahr. These waters contain less than 4 grains of solid ingredients
to the pint, but one of them, containing an appreciable amount of
sulphuretted hydrogen, is known as the sulphur spring. Aix was known
to the Romans, and in the modern town will be found every bathing
appliance which art can contrive.
At _Mont Doré_ and at _Bourboule_, in the department of Puy de Dôme, in
France, at an elevation of 3400 feet above the sea, are thermal springs
having a temperature of 104° Fahr. to 114° Fahr.
Having enumerated the chief warm baths in Europe, we will proceed to
catalogue some of the best known of the salt baths.
_Droitwich_, in Worcestershire, is perhaps the only place in England
where concentrated salt baths can be obtained. The brine of Droitwich
is said to contain as much as 2760 grains to the pint. The town is
uninteresting.
At _Ischl_, in the Salzkammergut, is a concentrated brine containing
1900 grains to the pint. It is 2000 feet above the sea-level, and the
country is charmingly picturesque.
_Kreuznach_, not far from Bingen on the Rhine, has a strong salt
spring, and is much resorted to by scrofulous patients. The mother-lye
of Kreuznach is said to contain 2400 grains to the pint. These strong
brines are only used after proper dilution.
The water of _Soden_, in the Taunus hills, contains 160 grains to the
pint; and at _Homburg_ are found several springs which have about 90
grains to the pint.
_Kissingen_ is a fashionable watering place in the north of Bavaria,
with an elevation of about 800 feet above the sea-level. Here will be
found all the accessories of bath life. The water contains about 60
grains of solid ingredients to the pint.
The _Wood Hall Spa_, near Lincoln, is a salt spring containing as much
as 160 grains to the pint.
_Rehme_, in Westphalia, is situated on the Cologne and Minden railway.
The water has nearly 250 grains of salt to the pint, and is very highly
charged with carbonic acid. The natural temperature of the water is 92°
Fahr. There is every facility at Rehme for administering baths of all
kinds and of all degrees of concentration.
_Nauheim_ is not far from Homburg, among the Taunus hills, and
possesses a water very similar to that of Rehme, having from 170 to 291
grains to the pint, being highly charged with carbonic acid, and having
a temperature of from 80° Fahr. to 94° Fahr. The elevation of Nauheim
above the sea-level is 450 feet. The salt baths of Rehme and Nauheim
enjoy a very wide reputation.
Although sulphur waters are not so much used for bathing as formerly
was the case, this little book would not be complete without some
notice of the chief sulphur springs.
_Harrogate_, in Yorkshire, has been well known for more than three
centuries, and although the sulphuretted hydrogen, by its predominant
smell, gives the chief character to the Harrogate springs, they
have an equal claim to be called saline or chalybeate, for they are
strongly impregnated with salt and with iron, so that the taste has
been compared to a mixture of rotten eggs and the scourings of a gun.
The old sulphur spring contains 137 grains of solid contents to the
pint, and is strongly impregnated with carbonic acid and sulphuretted
hydrogen. Harrogate is now a fashionable watering place, with every
accommodation for visitors. The situation of the town is open and airy,
and the climate is decidedly bracing.
_Gilsland_, in Cumberland, has a sulphur spring of some repute.
The Pyrenees is the district _par excellence_ of sulphur springs.
_Baréges_ is the most famous of the Pyrenean baths, situated 4000 feet
above the level of the sea. Its water, which has a natural temperature
of 86° Fahr. to 111° Fahr., contains only 1·657 grains to the pint,
of which ·360 grain is sodium sulphide. This becoming decomposed on
exposure, forms the sulphuretted hydrogen which gives the character to
the spring. These sulphur waters contain a peculiar gelatinous organic
substance which has been called barégine, and which has been supposed
by some authorities, but on insufficient grounds, to give the peculiar
virtue to the water.
_Cauterets_, in the Pyrenees, 3000 feet above sea-level, with a sulphur
water having a natural temperature of 98° Fahr. to 130° Fahr.
_Bagnères de Luchon_, 2000 feet above sea-level, with a natural hot
sulphurous water.
_Eaux Bonnes_ and _Eaux Chaudes_, 2000 feet above the sea.
At _Aix-les-Bains_, in Savoy, one of the springs is strongly
impregnated with sulphur.
_Aix-la-Chapelle_, in Rhenish Prussia, is 450 feet above the sea. The
water contains about 30 grains of solid contents to the pint, and is
strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen.
Any water may be used for bathing purposes, and it is almost always the
custom for visitors who go to a spring for the purpose of _drinking_
the water, to take some _baths_ as well, the baths often being composed
of the same water as that used for drinking. It is not generally
believed that there is any particular virtue in baths composed of
alkaline waters, such as those to be found at Vichy, nor in purgative
waters, like those at Carlsbad, nor in iron waters like those at
Tunbridge Wells, Spa or Schwalbach. Hot bathing, however, may be
expected to help the effect which it is sought to bring about by taking
the water internally, and it has not unfrequently been the case that
the effect of drinking has been attributed to the bathing.
It is worthy of remark that, at some places where miracles are claimed
to be wrought by the effect of water (as, for example, at Malvern),
the water used is remarkable merely for its great purity and almost
absolute freedom from mineral ingredients.
It is not a little remarkable that some waters, which were formerly
used almost exclusively for _bathing_, are now used almost as
exclusively for drinking. Carlsbad affords an instance of this. The
word _bad_, when used as an affix, generally indicates that the water
is or has been used mainly for bathing. The word _brunn_, or _brunnen_,
however, usually implies that the spring has been mainly employed for
drinking purposes.