THE BATHING AND DRINKING ESTABLISHMENTS.
87
parison terminates; and all tlie delightful sensations pro- duced by tlie mineral batli, arc looked for in vain in tlie ordinary balli. Why so?
This very circumstance of tlie Wildbad water being na- turally of that degree of heat which is best suited to tbe human body, renders it preferable to tliose warm springs which require either spontancous refrigeration, or tlie mix- ture of cold water previously to tlieir being employcd; as at Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, Gastein, Tceplitz and Carls- bad. It is also preferable because tlie patient actually batlies in the very stream as it riscs from tlie carth, and catches the proffered boon of nature at its birtli. Infact, he batlies in a natural warm river. How inferior must a tub or a slipper-batli be to this, into which the warni water, previously fashioned into a right degree of heat, is conveyed through pipes and from reservoirs. But tliere is, in my estiination, a still greater superiority on the side of the Wildbad spring, as a salutary batli, over every other,— no matter how well-managed the latter be; and that is the simple fact tliat, whcreas in all the other batlis the tem- perature of the water in which the patient is immersed, must, and does, progressively diminish, in tlie course of the liour, or lialf-an hour even, during which the Operation of bathing lasts — that of the water of the Wildbad bath is uninterruptedly the same, for tlie water contiuues in its never-varying natural condition.
The superiority of Wildbad becomes still more evident, if authenticated aceounts of this Spa are placed in juxta- position witli tliose of other bathing-places, generally con- sidered as possessing similar properties. Dr. Gianville who certainly has proved an unprejudiccd observer, has drawn in his work the following parallel between Wildbad, Gastein, and Schlangenbad: