Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/84

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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?”

H—d.

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