Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/70

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
66
 

hypocondriacal and melancholy feelings evince the abdominal nature of their case, and the necessity of drinking desobstruent waters. Though English visitors have not been hitherto so numerous as patients from all other parts of the world, that slavery to purgative medecines, that fondness for mercurial preparations (calomel or blue pills), that apprehension of danger, if four and twenty hours pass without having their bowels cleaned, have been particularly observed among them. Many physicians of eminence, such as Dr. James Clarke, of London, and Dr. John Abercrombie, of Edinburgh, have of late strongly blamed that national predilection. I shall not repeat here their arguments, founded upon extensive experience; but I have attended many English invalids, who, after a regular course of our waters, felt no more the want of mercurial or other drastic and irritating purgatives, as well as I have seen immoderate eaters, great drinkers, and lovers of refined cookery, contract here salutary habits of frugality and temperance.


BILIARY AND URINARY CALCULI.

The renown of Carlsbad for the expulsion of calculi seems to be old standing, and, according to the Journal kept in 1571 by George Handsch of Limusa,