Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/12

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those whom Brighton had not restored, regretted their having placed confidence in artificial preparations. Far from attempting to depreciate those imitations, or examining in what respects art and nature may agree or differ, my sole object is to point out the causes of the increase of english visitors at Carlsbad. Knowing that hepatic, splenetic, dyspeptic, gravelly, herpetic and gouty cases abound in Great Britain, as indeed more or less every where, many of those invalids have encouraged me to publish an english description of the place, and a short account of the nature and effects of our waters, and of the various ways of using them, either by drinking, bathing or steam. It will be perhaps considered as a bold undertaking, to write in a language which I learned nearly half a century ago, during my medical studies at Edinburgh. My only wish is to be understood, and I shall never take it amiss, if my reader now and then smiles at a gallicism or a germanism.