3. BUXTON.

The drive, of some twenty miles, from Matlock to Buxton, through Anglo-Saxon Switzerland," presents some of the best and most picturesque scenery which I have seen in England. The banks of the Avon, about Clifton, however, afford a formidable rival.

Buxton itself is now a lion of considerable magnitude among the spas of England, though formerly it presented little else than barren heaths and a gelid climate, now converted into undulating hills and dales, with wood and water, corn and meadow, river and rill-the whole forming quite a riant prospect. The air of this elevated region is bracing, and, like that of High Harrogate, imparts elasticity to the body and hilarity to the mind of man. There are a sufficiency and variety of agreeable walks for the accommodation of invalids. Buxton is more than a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and although much rain must fall in this elevated region, yet the air is not damp-colds are seldom caught-and epidemic diseases are unknown.

The Romans never failed to hunt out thermal springs wherever they existed. Although the temperature of these waters (80°) was not quite what the greasy soldiers and luxurious officers wished, yet they erected baths here, and various ruins and vestiges have been discovered confirmatory of the fact. The modern bather in these tepid floods must derive great satisfaction from the knowledge that he is plunging in the same spring where the weary limbs of Mary Queen of Scots had been laved, as well as those of Leicester, Burleigh, and other stars of their day. Useless crutches were here hung up, and numerous votive tablets erected in gratitude for the miraculous cures performed by the holy waters of St. Anne, the tutelar saint. But when the reign of fanaticism came, in the days of the Commonwealth, these emblems of Popery were demolished, and the springs themselves anathematized and outlawed! When the storms of persecution blew over, the Buxton waters gradually regained their celebrity, and the Dukes of Devonshire proved themselves to be the best tutelar saints by erecting splendid buildings round the spas-improving the roads-planting the hills-and cultivating the vales.

The baths are public and private. The public one in which we saw several gentlemen bathing and swimming, quite naked, would accommodate ten, fifteen, or twenty people, (male or female), very well in this way. A large and powerful pump, or douche, is kept in constant employment. The following description of the public bath, though a little too highly coloured in some places, is, upon the whole, correct.

"In the public bath I saw many people bathing, three or four at a time, and several in succession. The operation with most of them was expeditious, the greater number of the bathers remaining but two or three minutes in the water, and being always in motion.

The water, from the dark colour of the rock at the bottom, and the darkness of the dome, (for it is in a vault under the Old Hall,') looks, at first view, dingy, and greenish; but it is as limpid, transparent, and colourless, as the one I drank at the spring. The form of the bath is an oblong square. The water surges about the middle, near the outer wall, to the height of four feet, and

passes off at one of the extremities of the bath by waste pipes. Bubbles of air may be seen rising in succession from time to time. At other times a single one, much larger than the rest, will come up, to break at the surface.

The people bathing differed, it appeared to me, in opinion as to the impression made on them by the water. Some said it was very cold; others declared it was very comfortable. As the sun darted a slanting ray through the half circular window close to the vaulted ceiling over it, the surface of the water exhibited a gathering of scum, having an unusual appearance in any mineral water, which took away from me the temptation I had at first experienced of trying the effect of the Buxton water at this nearest point of its source.

The overflowing or escape of the surplus water through the waste pipes, is never so quick but that the said scum, or floating matter, remains too long spread over its surface, as I witnessed during the half-hour I kept watching the proceedings of those who were in the bath. Indeed, one of the attendants comes now and then with a broom, and sweeps from off the surface the coarser particles, and thus restores to the water its natural appearance. But, at best, this is but mixing up with the water, or dissolving in it, the objectionable substance.

Altogether, the bathing in such a piscina was not such as to please my fancy; and when I beheld the class of persons, too, who kept coming in (for the access is free, and the bath always open), and their dress and appearance-when I saw the pot-bellied farmer of sixty, half palsied, and the lame artisan with his black and callous hands, and the many who suffered from cutaneous disorders-all plunging together, or one after the other, in quick succession-some of whom would set about scrubbing from their hardened cuticles the congregated perspiration of ages, with a handbrush kept pro bono publico on the margin of the bath;-I say, when I beheld all these things, I confess my courage failed me, despite of my constant desire to try on myself, and ascertain by my own feelings, the effects of the various mineral waters I have examined."—Granville, p. 65.

The gentlemen's and the ladies' private baths (natural temperature) are at some distance from the source, and are cooler. We did not bathe in these but in the public bath, and certainly perceived very little shock on the first immersion. In a minute or two, the water felt very comfortable. The following is Dr. Granville's description of the effects of the private bath at natural temperature-or rather two or three degrees below 82o.

"I entered the bath about twenty minutes before eight, A. M., my pulse at eighty-two. I had drunk half a pint of the mineral water some time before. The immersion was by the steps, and therefore gradual. The feeling of cold on the skin produced by the first approach of the water formed a striking contrast with the pleasing warmth of the atmosphere of the room. When I let myself down into the middle, and at the bottom of the basin, by holding the chain which hangs from the centre of the ceiling, the shock was precisely similar to what I have often felt when plunging into the open sea at the same time of the day and year. It took my breath away, and tightened the thorax, producing, however, not the slightest vestige of disturbance, either in the head or in the movements of the heart.

I partially got out and recovered my breath, and again plunged into the bath, all within two or three minutes. The water felt still cold, but not so as to affect the respiration this time. After the first four minutes, I being either standing upright on the tiles which felt cold to the feet, or floating horizontally under the water, a degree of warmth began to pervade the body along its surface, and was evidently on the increase at every half-minute. The skin felt soft-not puckered nor corrugated in any part, as is generally the case in warm water, and many

mineral springs; when the hands were passed over the body, they glided readily

over it.

Even after a few minutes longer, I experienced no inclination to sleepiness, and the head continued in the same state as when I went in. Before I left the bath, however, I ascertained that, contrary to the effect produced by an ordinary warm-bath, if I raised my limbs from the middle of the depth to nearer the surface, the difference of feeling, as to warmth, was what I should have estimated at about three or four degrees of increased temperature.

So much so was this the case, that quitting the position in which the limb was previously stationary, and around which the water felt as if it had grown cold, and raising it to the position before alluded to, I could have imagined that I had placed my limb into a totally differently-heated water-into one, in fact, of a regular tepid bath, so genial was the first impression. But then it was only a first impression, which soon vanished, to be again renewed by seeking with the limbs, or any other part of the body, another and a new position.

At the expiration of about ten minutes, I might have fancied myself, from my own feelings, in a bath of 94° or 95°, or in a regular tepid bath; and this apparent feeling or impression was even stronger if I got on the steps of the reservoir, and quite out of the water, and immediately plunged into the water again.

Judging from this single experiment, which I have detailed minutely for very obvious reasons, I should say that the proper mode of using these baths would be, not to plunge, but to walk gradually and quickly into the water up to the chin, and out of it as quickly again. This operation should be repeated at least three or four times, occupying perhaps two minutes each time in doing it; and lastly the bathers should return into the water for the sake of a real bath, which would then produce pleasurable sensations, and could be borne very well and quietly for ten minutes longer, or even a quarter of an hour,-during which time, the body would receive the full benefit of these volcanic waters.

There is no disguising the fact: Buxton is a cold and not a tepid bath, and only becomes tepid to the feelings by a little time and management-the same as in the open sea-but not in an ordinary water-bath at 83°. The difference here is, that the warmth, when once felt, is a permanent sensation, were you to remain even hours together in the bath; whereas in ordinary water, tepid bathing, or the open sea, or in a river or a spring in the sun, the water which at first might seem tepid, would soon progressively feel colder and colder." 39.

When we consider that these waters contain only about two grains of saline matters in the pint, we can hardly suppose that they lose much of their medicinal agency by being heated by steam to the temperature of the body, or even of the blood. Dr. Granville, however, is of a very different opinion. "The most marked effect of the Buxton water (says he) is that of stimulation, whether the water be taken internally or used externally." And a little farther on he affirms that—" the fact is, again, that the stimulation is due, not to thermometrical heat, but to the portion only of telluric heat inherent in the water." This statement we cannot contravene, not having been deep enough in the bowels of the earth to distinguish between thermometrical and telluric heat. All we can say is, that in bathing at a temperature of 98° in the private baths, we experienced as agreeable sensations as we ever did in the Serpent's Bath, Wildbad, Tepliz, or Pfeffers. The lubricating quality of the Buxton water is very peculiar. When we rubbed the hand over the surface of the body or against the tiles, the parts felt oily or as Dr. Belcome of York once characterized it to us-it was like bathing in new milk. The water itself is beautifully clear. We quite agree with Dr. Granville in the following remark. "It was beautifully

transparent, and of a faint aquamarine colour. The minutest object could be perceived, but magnified considerably. The very lightest coloured hairs on the arms appeared dark from increased size, which seemed double their natural one at least." When the bath was cleared out, Dr. G. observed a kind of "oily slime" adherent to the sides; and yet he avers that the skin of the body felt rough, when the hand was passed over it in the bath. This was the very reverse of the feeling which we experienced -a feeling corroborated by every one with whom we conversed on the subject. Let those who plunge into the warm waters at Buxton decide the point. We cannot help thinking our author rather too fastidious in respect to the private baths. The ante-rooms and every thing connected with them, are infinitely more tidy and clean than at his favourite "Furstenbad" at Wildbad.

The font for drinking the water is certainly not quite like that at Marienbad or the Pump-room at Bath: while the very old dame who hangs over the slender rill, would seem a good specimen of Buxton longevity-perhaps of the salutary influence of the waters. It has neither colour, taste,

nor smell. Its medicinal effects are much less determinate when taken internally. But, in either case, we imagine that these effects are better ascertained by experience on the spot, than by any hypothetical theory founded on caloricity, vitality, telluricity, &c. by temporary sojourners at this or any other spa. Sir C. Scudamore, assisted by Mr. Garden, detected 4 cubic inches of azotic gas in a gallon of these waters, and to this Sir Charles attaches considerable importance.

"With regard to the Buxton water, (says Sir Charles) the subject of my present inquiry, it certainly happens that, simple as it appears in composition, it does prove inconveniently stimulatiug to some persons of full habit and of the sanguineous temperament. They complain of flushing, headache, and slight giddiness, and are deterred, by such symptoms, from proceeding in the course of drinking it. Many instances have come under my observation in which the exciting power of the water has been proved in the gouty patient; symptoms of a paroxysm having occurred in a few days after its commencement; subsiding, also, upon its being discontinued, and from the aid of medicine.

Others, and those especially who have a weakened condition of the nervous energy aud of the muscular power of the stomach, complain that the water is felt as a dead weight on the stomach, that it is slow in passing off, and that, until it does so, they are much oppressed and inconvenienced.

These, however, are the exceptions, and not the rule; for, in general, the water agrees remarkably well, and is drunk freely without any unpleasant result; but, on the contrary, with benefit and satisfaction."

The operation of these waters on the bowels is variously stated by different patients and practitioners: some of the former representing it as aperient, others as constipating. The probability is, that Buxton water has no specific action on the bowels, in either way. There is no doubt, however, of its diuretic properties-and the author just named, considers it useful in many cases of indigestion where there is no inflammatory or congestive condition present.

* Second Edition, p. 22.

Sir Charles details the mode of taking the waters internally, and ascribes all their medicinal effects, thus taken, to the azote which they contain.

"For the same reason that many persons speak of this water as being too simple in its composition, too much like common water to claim any reliance upon it as a medicine, do I think favourably of its qualities; namely, from its purity, owing to the remarkably small proportion of its solid ingredients, and from its gaseous impregnation with azote, qualifying it in so eminent a degree to fulfil the valuable purposes of a stimulating diluent; and which, taken on an empty stomach, or scarcely occupied with any food, acts favourably, in the first instance, on this delicate organ, and quickly finds its way into the circulation, producing ulterior good effects. In diluting, and assisting towards the removal of any acrimonious secretions which may be delayed in the stomach and duodenum, this aqueous diluent may have much more useful effect than may be at first sight imagined; particularly by those who see a remedy only in what is very potent in its nature and composition."* 24.

It is as a bath, however, that Buxton has attained and still sustains its reputation. Sir Charles Scudamore is far from wishing that the subterranean boiler had thrown up water at a higher temperature than 82°— so happily intermediate between the warm and cold bath," which neither excites by too much stimulus of heat, nor depresses by too much sedative influence of cold. In this he disagrees, toto cœlo, from Dr. Granville.

Dr. Robertson, one of the resident physicians at Buxton, remarks that -"chiefly owing to the alkaline properties of the water, the skin is speedily cleared of all scurfiness and impurities, and is rendered most singularly and delightfully smooth."

It has been seen that Dr. Granville experienced the very opposite effects. The doctor's sensibility was probably a little deranged at the time. It clearly was so at Wildbad.

"The mode of entering the bath is a point of some importance. It is necessary to make the immersion as quickly as possible, in order that the shock and the consequent re-action may be instantaneous. When there is no infirmity to prevent it, the patient should, with the least delay after descending the steps, fall forward, so as to receive entire immersion; and, at the first time, be contented with this, leaving the bath immediately. The stay in the bath is to be gradually increased afterwards, and the maximum duration will vary in different cases; this averages from four to fifteen minutes.

It is the fault of many to remain too long; in doing which, they are deceived in expecting the tonic effects of the bath. Those who are vigorous enough, and become accustomed to the bath, may make their plunge from the side of the bath, taking care, as I have known some very imprudently do, not to dive as it were with the head downwards. The gravitation of the blood in this mode might create serious mischief."† 34.

Sir Charles considers an hour or two before dinner as the best time of day for taking the bath, some exercise having been previously used. It is absolutely necessary that the bowels should be in a clear and open state, before the bath is commenced.