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chest. Too many of the medical world is too apt to treat diseases according to the name which they affix to them in their own minds. If they determine that it is "INDIGESTION," then a certain routine diet and pharmacy are ordered which, in general, is the very reverse of that which is necessary in incipient pulmonary affection, where inflammatory action is present in nineteen cases out of twenty. The consequences need not be told! We do not accuse our author of these indiscriminations; but assuredly his writings will lead hundreds of inexperienced practitioners astray. We strongly recommend the following judicious advice to our younger brethren.

"As a general rule, it may be laid down, that so long as the secondary affections are purely sympathetic, purely functional, perseverance in the measures addressed to the digestive organs is alone requisite. This rule applies equally to the sympathetic affections of the heart, lungs, and brain. But it is incumbent on us to recollect, that it is almost inconceivable how insidiously sympathetic, erects itself into fixed and independent disease; which attention to the digestive organs may indeed palliate, but can then no longer eradicate." 302.

This is a good rule, but the one we have alluded to is better-namely, to treat both affections simultaneously. On this plan it is hardly possible to do harm.

We may conclude, with again expressing our opinion that Dr. Dick has, with great labour and no trifling discrimination, compiled, selected, compared, and, as it were, amalgamated, a vast store of "useful knowledge" on the subject of stomach complaints, through which a large current of original matter constantly flows.

THE SPAS OF ENGLAND, &c. By A. B. Granville, M. D.
3 vols. octavo. Colbourn, 1841.

DR. GRANVILLE is one of the first living locomotives that now exists. With great talent for observation, his tablets are ever ready to receive and record the transient impressions on a lively imagination. Nothing escapes his notice. From the tariff of a dull French " Poste," to the magnificent bill of fare at a splendid table-d'hôte in a Cursaal-from a cold and bitter draught of Pullna, drawn from a ditch in Bohemia, to a goblet of the boiling Sprudel, or the sparkling Kreuzbrun-from a musical diagram o the prattling echo on the Rhine, to a profound speculation on the central caloric of the globe we inhabit-from an architectural criticism on the façade of a terminus to a geological disquisition on a Druid's circle-all these, and every thing else which science discovers, art invents, or the press commemorates,

"Quicquid agunt homines,"

contribute to fill the portfolio of our lively and indefatigable author.

The "SPAS OF GERMANY" having gone off with such eclat, it was

natural to expect a pendent or sequel to them, collected from the "SPAS OF ENGLAND." But here, we suspect the worthy doctor calculated without his host-or perhaps the HOST HIMSELF Overshot the mark. The old Scotch proverb that "far fowls have fair feathers," told much in favour of the foreign waters, whilst the homely adage that "familiarity breeds contempt," told equally against the " Spas of England." But independent of these proverbs, our comparative ignorance of the German mineral waters rendered a description of them agreeable, a little embellishment pardonable, and a desire to drink them almost irresistible. The consequences might have been foreseen. The gossip and travelling anecdotes of a foreign tour will go down much easier than descriptions and scenes at our home watering-places, with which we are all familiar. The only judicious plan was, in our humble opinion, to throw overboard all the gossip and anecdote, and thus compress the real and necessary information respecting our own medicinal springs, into one volume, instead of spinning it out into THREE. This might have been done with the greatest ease, had Dr. Granville possessed the "organ of concentrativeness" in greater development-or the " organ of self-esteem" in less. The author, or rather the publisher, ought to have commenced with "the Spas of England," as he ended with those of Germany-by reduction of size and price to one-third the original dimensions and amount.

The three volumes before us are extremely well calculated for the operation of a condensing engine in the hands of a practised analyzer, since the materials are so squeezable that they might be reduced to almost any narrowness of limit, not only without injury, but with the greatest advantage. Such an article would gain in strength in exact proportion as it diminished in size, while its utility would be inversely to its verbosity. We do not entirely blame our author for taking a course directly the reverse. When a writer is paid by the sheet, and a publisher is remunerated by the volume-when, in short, the author cannot dictate, without danger of remonstrance, to the man mid-wife who delivers his brain of its literary offspring, the case will ever be, as it has always been, that trade domineers over literature, and gold over reputation. This, however, is somewhat out of our way—a mere "sat verbum." We must now to our work.

We must pass over the several pages of "Popular Considerations on English Mineral Waters," with an admiration of the extremely shrewd recommendation at page 47-namely, that all patients who are thinking of visiting a Spa, whether at home or abroad, should put this home question to their doctor-have you personally visited the proposed Spa? This is a popular hint worthy of being recorded in letters of gold?

CHAP. I.-" CLEARING THE WAY WITH THE PUBLIC."

This consists of a dialogue (imaginary) between a SPA-DOCTOR and his friend, with which the public has no more concern, than with the " dialogues of the dead."

CHAP. II." RAIL-ROAD TRAVELLING."

Dr. G. comes to the conclusion that "such a mode of conveyance is not

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more likely to do mischief to people's health than any other hitherto adopted." But he makes a qualifying declaration that—" Constituted as rail-rords are at present, it is not impossible that some easily affrighted dame, some highly nervous old gentleman, &c. may suffer from railway travelling, or from some of its concomitants." Few will hesitate to subscribe to this doctrine-and all will hope that Dr. Granville's improvements will be adopted throughout England.

CHAP. III. and a rather long one, is on the same subject—a division which is of no interest or concern to any one but the compositor, who calls a blank page "a piece of fat." It is fat to him, but it is monstrously lean to the reader! We were a little surprised at the following statement :-To a traveller who is in a hurry, and desires to enjoy as many of the comforts of a rail-road as he can procure, the night train is unquestionably to be preferred." p. 27, vol. 1. All we can say is de gustibus non disputandum.

Passing over the moving scenes in Euston Square and the Birmingham station, the first of which is pronounced to be "dramatic in effect," and the second " no less theatrical," we will transport our readers at once to

HARROGATE.

CHAP. V. Dr. G. very justly remarks, that "Harrogate has the very air of a watering-place." No one will doubt this, or ever forget the air of it, who takes a good large glassful of the Old Sulphur Well. If any one can imagine an old rusty gun-barrel (that had not been fired or scaled since the time of the Spanish Armada) to be well scoured out with sea water, in which a large number of rotten eggs are dissolved, and, last of all, a stream of sulphuretted and carburetted hydrogen gas directed through the "preparation," he will have a good idea of this "Yorkshire stingo at Low Harrogate.

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But the more stinking a medicine is, the greater will be its reputation; and Horrogate is now becoming one of the most renowned Spas in England. It is a place of many springs, and so many chops and changes have taken place in the names of the wells and of their proprietors, that it is no easy matter to ascertain them. It took us forty-eight hours, in the month of August last, with Dr. Granville's, Dr. Hunter's, Dr. Scudamore's, and other books in our hands, before we could unravel the intricacy that prevails here. Here we have, at Low Harrogate, two sulphur wells (the old one without a pump, and the Montpellier well with one) three salines, (the Montpellier Cheltenham, Walker's Strong Saline, and the Promenade Cheltenham Saline,) with two extensive bathing establishments. Between Low and High Horrogate, in a swampy common, we have the oldest well of all, a pure chalybeate-the TEWIT, with a mere rude stone shed to defend it from the rains and winds, and attended by a very ancient Naiad, who doles out the clear steel spring to a few votaries. Near it stands the ruins of a cottage, which give the place a triste air of solitude and desolation:

"Deserted in its utmost need

By those its former bounty fed."

A narrow road, on which two gigs could scarcely pass, leads from Low Harrogate to the original spring which first gave this watering-place "a local habitation and a name !!"

Ascending about a quarter of a mile on the common, we come to the second spring, in age, called the "OLD, or SWEET SPA," situated nearly opposite the Granby Hotel, in High Harrogate. Some more attention has been paid to this pure chalybeate, as it is enclosed in a stone building, and open to all bibbers, who can bring a glass or cup with them. Both this and the TEWIT are pure chalybeates, one containing two grains, the other two and a half grains of iron in the gallon-or about a quarter of a grain in the pint.

Traversing the table land or common of High Harrogate, one mile and a half from the Old or Sweet Spa, on the Knaresborough road, we come o the STARBECK WELLS-one, a mild sulphur, and the other a mild saline chalybeate water, with a small suite of baths.

Thus then, we see that there are eight or nine drinking wells at Harrogate, all varying more or less from one another in their chemical composition and medicinal effects. Excepting the two pure chalybeates, all the waters are aperient. The sulphur wells being most so, though containing little of other aperient salts than the muriate of soda.

The "MONTPELLIER SALINE CHALY BEATE" contains 110 grains of salts in the pint, of which muriate of soda makes 81 grains-sulph. sodæ 24-muriate of lime 22-muriate of magnesia 4 grains-oxyde of iron nearly half a grain.

The "ROYAL PROMENADE OR CHELTENHAM SALINE," as it is called, contains in the pint, as follows:-muriate of soda 24 grains-muriate of lime 18 grains-muriate of magnesia 10 grains-carb. soda 1 grainoxyde of iron half a grain.

The impropriety of giving the term "Cheltenham" to this water is evident-there being no sulphate of soda or magnesia in it. Its aperient qualities must therefore rest on the muriate of soda, and muriate of magnesia.

Walker's Pure, or "Strong Saline," as it is termed, contains about 90 grains of saline matters in the pint-into which enter 76 grains of muriate of soda-6 of carb. soda-5 muriate of lime-2 of muriate of magnesia.

We need not specify the wells any farther. They are capable of application to a great variety of complaints, whether taken internally or used in baths, or both conjoined.

Among our forefathers the Harrogate waters worked wonders. Dr Dean informs us that "the common people drink them, and they expel reef and fellon. They soon help and cure by washing and bathing, itch, scab, morphew, tetters, ringworm, and the like."

It appears by the testimony of Dr. Neale of Leeds, that the Old Chalybeate, or "Sweet Spa," as it was called, were not behind the sulphur wells in his day.

"As to the virtues of this spring there is scarce any disease incident to mankind wherein its inward or outward use may not be of service. I have been an eye witness of its effects nearly forty years, and I have not neglected drinking

it myself any one season all that time; and though I am now in my 66th year, yet I am strong and vigorous, free from the complaints of old age. But because a general and just commendation of this spring will not be satisfactory, without condescending to enumerate the diseases wherein it's proper.-It's good therefore, to restore a lost appetite and digestion, to mitigate the scurvy, correct all acid humours in the lympha, blood, nervous and pancreatic juices. It cleanses the kidneys and ureters of slime, sand, gravel, and great stones, and is very assistant in curing ulcers in those parts. It removes the hyppo's melancholy, opens obstructions of the lungs, liver, spleen, mesentery, and glands. It purifies the blood, and renders the spirits in the body more cheerful and lively. Several short-winded, asthmatic, weak, and lame people, have had their lungs and limbs restored to their former strength and usefulness. It relieves inveterate headaches, especially if at the same time you use the cold bath. It is also very serviceable in the gout, by restoring the use of lame hands, knees, legs, and feet. It revives the memory, clears the brains from viscous humours, and helps the eyes by drying up rheums. It relieves sharpness of urine, strangury and disury, if there is no large stone or other stoppage in the urinary passages. It corrects acidity in any part of the body; as in the heartburn, belchings, sourness at the stomach, gripes, cholic, and borbarigmos. It opens the breast and lungs, cuts tough flegm, promotes expectoration, and has often been successful in the cure of blood-spitting, hectic fever, too great heat and dryness of the skin and body." 86.

But descending along the stream of time to our own days, we shall give an extract from one of the most recent writers.-Dr. Adam Hunter, of Leeds, who has enjoyed means of observations which could not fall to the lot of any casual visiter of this celebrated spa.

"Although well aware that nosological arrangement has latterly been very much disregarded, and even discouraged by some celebrated lecturers, I have long been convinced of its utility, not only in the study but practice of medicine. Allowing that in many instances the classification is imperfect, and founded upon hypothetical reasoning, the abstract question of its correctness seldom interferes, or will soon cease to have any influence over the mind of the practitioner; while the arrangement of observations under their respective heads, greatly facilitates inquiry, and gives accuracy to the deductions obtained. With this view, as intended for the medical reader I shall briefly glance at the nosological arrangement of Cullen, in relation to these waters. As alterative aperients, they will be found chiefly applicable in the chronic forms of most of the diseases included in the class pyrexia and order phlegmasiæ; in the sequelæ of most of the exanthemata; and in the hemorrhagiæ. In class second, neuroses, order second, adynamiæ, these waters possess great power. In almost every one of the third class cachexiæ, they are no less useful. Likewise in a considerable number included in the fourth class, locales.

The Sulphur Water speedily and safely carries off the effects of intemperance in those who, having spent the winter and spring in festivity, resort to Harrogate with their system loaded with impurities, from ths excesses of the table, and whose stomachs are debilitated by these and similar causes. Its use is acknowledged in those predisposed to apoplexy. In chlorosis or green sickness, it has been usual to drink the sulphur water for some time, and then take the chalybeate. In diseases of the skin, especially the order squame of Willan, who mentions his having seen some very obstinate cases of lepra, alphos, and psoriasis, completely cured by this water; in porrigo, herpes, and the impetigines; scrofula, scurvy, secondary syphilis, and ulcers, its use has been equally efficacious. In gout also, in both its principal divisions of regular and irregular, or atonic; in the first, the constitution is sound and vigorous, the fits are severe and regular, and there is generally plethora and inflammatory diathesis: in the second, the

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