Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad/Regimen
REGIMEN.
WITHOUT submitting our invalids to useless privations and painful abstinences, a regular regimen must, however, accompany the use of a mineral water, which excites so manifestly the vascular system, and the action of the bowels, kidneys and skin. The few rules of our dietetic code are seldom transgressed with impunity.
In enumerating our various provisions, I remarked (p. 24) that our restaurateurs never present any dish incompatible with the use of the waters, and that dangerous dainties are not to be found at Carlsbad.
The interval of an hour is necessary between the last beaker and the breakfast, and, in order to promote the digestion of the water, patients, stout enough to continue the walk they have taken at the wells, should protract it about an hour longer, before their breakfast, which many, when the weather permits it, take in open air.
Most people drink coffee or chocolate. Without reprobating these two articles, I shall only observe that coffee aggravates hepatic disorders, attended with a disposition to inflammation, particularly when the presence of gall-stones excites pain or irritation; it produces in the liver a burning and pungent sensation, which often disappears as soon as patients adopt some milder mode of breakfasting, such as soup, an infusion of balm, or other harmless beverage. Coffee, in one word, should never be allowed to invalids, whose abdominal organs give such signs of inflammation or sensibility to the touch, as to require leeches, or any other part of the antiphlogistic treatment, so often necessary with our patients.
Chocolate does not produce the same irritative effects as coffee, so remarkable for the subtility of its aromatic principles, and still less a plain decoction of cocoa; but few people digest well and relish chocolate for any length of time, as they do coffee or tea.
Tea has been in general proscribed in most German watering-places, at least in those of Bohemia. Not being a national beverage, physicians and patients have so seldom a personal experience of it, that in the numberless works published on mineral waters, so minute on other articles of diet, nothing or very little is said about tea. That infusion having been found incompatible with the use of more essentially chalybeate waters, that incompatibility has been, without any examination, extended to ours. Submitted to exact calculation, I find that six goblets of water contain the 55/1000th part of one grain of oxydule of iron, that is to say almost a nullity. Let us suppose that a patient drinks twelve or even eighteen goblets, what influence can such a quantity of iron have upon two or three cups of tea, taken an hour after the waters, and still less, when taken in the evening?
Innumerable visitors, coming from countries where tea is as common a beverage (England, Russia, Poland, Holland) as coffee in Germany and France, many would find it excessively hard, as they did formerly at Carlsbad, to give up their habitual mode of breakfasting. The fact is that tea does not excite the blood-vessels, as much as coffee; that it acts more directly on the nervous system, and keeps awake those who are not accustomed to it, or who take it immoderately strong; that such effects are never felt by people who drink it daily; that those who never drank it, should not begin at Carlsbad; but that those who are accustomed to that beverage, have no reason to discontinue it during the cure; and that black tea is far preferable to the more acerb and astringent green sorts.
Concerning breakfast, we are daily asked whether butter can agree with the internal use of the waters. Being exquisite in our valley, I never found it hurtful in moderate quantity, spread upon fine white bread, which is of the best sort at Carlsbad.
Strawberries are so plentiful, and last so long, that patients are tempted to eat them. Their acidity, disturbing the action of our alkaline waters, deranges the bowels, and occasions colic or diarrhea, whilst, on the other hand, the innumerable seeds of that fruit, by their astringent quality, produce sometimes costiveness. Every sort of raw fruit must be interdicted, but compotes are harmless.
Our digestive powers being sufficiently employed with the elaboration of the water and of a moderate breakfast, warm and cold meat (déjeûners à la fourchette) are inadmissible.
The dinner hour varies from one to three o’clock. The bill of fare is exactly regulated in eating-houses. Those who bring their own cook, must follow the instructions of their physician about forbidden or allowed dishes.
Bohemian, Hungarian, Austrian and various foreign wines can be had at Carlsbad; but their choice depends much more upon their genuineness than upon their name; and whatever sort is adopted, great moderation is indispensable. The necessity of a quiet sleep, and of going the next day to the wells with an empty stomach, does not admit of a regular supper. Every patient, according to his own predilection, should content himself with tea, chocolate, or soup.
It is imprudent to take ices, under the influence of a water which promotes perspiration.
The principal conditions to be observed, besides the above dietetic precepts, are temperance, gentle exercise, no serious occupations, no profound reading, and, above all, tranquillity of mind. No where can be better applied than at Carlsbad, the well-known inscription, placed at the entrance of the Antonin’s Baths: Curarum vacuus adeas hoc templum, ut morborum vacuus abire queas. Non curatur qui curat.
