Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad/The wells
THE WELLS.
ALL the hot springs of Carlsbad, rising from the same natural reservoir, issue from different orifices; each has its name and its temperature. Their number has often varied, some of them having appeared, disappeared and re-appeared. Others, on both sides of the river, are found in several houses, and might be, if necessary, adapted to medical use. We have now the Sprudel, the Hygiaea, the Neubrunn, the Mühlbrunn, the Theresienbrunn, the Bernardsbrunn, the Schlossbrunn and the Spitalbrunn.
The boiler, which supplies them all, formed by the mineral sediments of the water itself (the fragments of which are called Sprudel-Stones), has a depth, thickness, extent and ramifications, which no human eye can scrutinize, and the enormous clouds of hot vapours, escaping from every accidental or artificial opening, will probably baffle all attempts to ascertain the dimensions of that wonderful laboratory. Such trials were made in 1713 and 1727, after a rupture of the boiler had taken place. The various boring and probing instruments penetrated through the calcareous crust, from one cavity to the other, till they reached at last an immense reservoir, the boundaries of which could not be attained by thirty fathoms length of poles, joined together, directed towards the Market-Place and the Hirschensprung. That a great part of the town stands upon these cavities, is sufficiently demonstrated, whenever the foundation of a new house is laid; copious streams of carbonic acid gaz are, moreover, incessantly seen bubbling in the river, near the wells.
Situated on the right bank of the Teple, in the centre of the town, the Sprudel, to which superior powers are attributed, is 60° R, or 168° F. It has various orifices, but two only are adapted to public use. One of them is exclusively called the Sprudel; the other, named Hygiaeia, on account of the statue of that goddess, placed near it, flows in a regular stream out of a pewter-pipe. Its vapour supplies our steam-baths. The broad square stones and long boards placed over the thermal chaldron, answer the purpose of a cuirass against the large masses of ice and floating trees, which, in their rapid course, when a thaw or an inundation takes place, might, like battering rams, break through the crust, and disturb the equilibrium indispensable to the regular spouting of the mineral water. In order to prevent such ruptures, whose cicatrisation is always slow, troublesome and expensive, the incrustation of its orifices is removed four times a year by a boring apparatus. The Sprudel water boils eggs hard, and is employed, since time immemorial, to scalding poultry and pigs, and to other such purposes, which are more oeconomical than grateful to the eye. The difference of temperature between fountains, coming from the same reservoir, is generally accounted for by the various distances of their orifice from the great focus, and by the warmer or cooler soil upon which the water circulates in the impenetrable meanders of this aquatic volcano.
The springs of the furious fountain (as Frederick Hoffmann called the Sprudel), the truest emblem of perpetual motion, are in general explained in the following manner: The npper parts of the reservoir fill themselves with carbonic acid gaz, escaping the more freely from the hot fluid mass, as the pressure, under which it lays, diminishes in proportion to the evaporation of the gaz. In that free slate, the gaz accumulates in the upper part of the cavity; when considerably increased, it depresses the surface of the water, which rushes out of the same orifice; and these two elements, under the form of vapour, escape together, giving in a minute, without intermission, eighteen or twenty ebullitions, from four to eight feet high. A hollow, unequal and subterraneous accompanies the emission of so much water, which, divided into myriads of globules, falls back in the same vessel (now in the form of a large artichoke) from which it springs, and is lead, by lateral pipes to the Sprudel-baths, to the evaporating salt-apparatus, and to the river flowing near it. The height of the springs can be more or less increased, according to the breadth and length of the square wooden pipe, through which the water ascends; but it remains nevertheless a springing fountain, even when left in a state of nature, deprived of its outward constructions. A peristyle, a long colonade, the elegant hall of the bath-house, a flower-garden, with a good band of music, offer to innumerable drinkers an agreable walk, during the whole season, whatever may be the weather.
The Mühlbrunn (45°R. or 135 F.), the Neubrunn (50° R. or 147 F.) and the Theresienbrunn (43° R. or 132 F.) on the left side of the Teple, communicate together, and are decorated with elegant buildings, colonades and gardens. The Schlossbrunn (40° R. or 122 F.) is much less frequented, on account of its high situation. The cavernous Bernardsbrunn is scarcely accessible to drinkers, but its abundant water, nearly as hot as the Sprudel, is led into a reservoir, necessary for cooling the Mühlbrunn-baths. Some ophthalmic patients use its vapour at random without medical advice. Aware of the dangerous consequences of such an empirical application, I suggested to an eminent oculist, Dr. Ryba, of Prague, the necessity of reducing to rational principles the indications and counter-indications, according to which that vapour may be beneficial or hurtful (Almanach de Carlsbad, 1834, ch. VIII).
The Spitalbrunn supplies the baths of the Saint Bernard’s Hospital, and is not frequented by other invalids.
Which ever of the springs patients are recommanded to, they regularly come from six to eight o’clock. Some of them drink a few goblets in the evening. The interval prescribed between one beaker and the other being a quarter of an hour, scarcely more than nine or ten beakers can be taken during two hours. Such a quantity proves sufficient in most cases; many patients, however, going far beyond that number, begin earlier. Few places in Europe offer, upon such a small spot, a more remarkable diversity of ranks, professions, countries, tongues, religions and costumes. Medical doctrines, rational or empirical, never had any influence upon the number of its visitors, which has always been increasing.
Carlsbad has been often, and not improperly, called an elegant hospital. Though many invalids, unable to walk, drink in their lodgings, by far the greatest number attend the wells:
Dulcius ex ipso fonte bibuntur aquae.
Abdominal diseases being here the most frequent, no where perhaps can jaundice and sickly complexions be seen under more forms and degrees. Most people attributing to the Sprudel an imaginary supremacy, melancholy, misanthropic and hypocondriacal patients shew a particular predilection for that fountain. If those sickly and sinister faces offer a painful sight, rapid changes take place, and the same invalids, walking, on their arrival, pensive and bent, avoiding company, and exciting commiseration, begin often, and very soon, to look better, to speak with gratitude of their improvement, and to contract gradually more sociable habits.
