| | 1 | Author: | Burke
William
M.D | Add | | | Title: | The mineral springs of western Virginia  | | | | Published: | 2008 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Among the numerous advantages bestowed
on Virginia by a bountiful Providence, there
are perhaps none more important than the
salubrity of climate and rich profusion of
mineral waters of its transmontane territory.
The happy combinations of these blessings,
added to its central position, will not only
make Western Virginia the great Mecca of
invalid pilgrims, but its pellucid fountains, its
beautiful villas, its secluded glens and majestic
mountains, and the rich drapery of its
noble forests, will ever attract to it the admirers
of Nature's own workmanship. I have just received your letter
of the 7th inst., soliciting my opinion and experience
of the remedial effects of the waters
of the Hot Springs in chronic diarrhœa and
difficult menstruation. "In April, 1833, I was seized with cholera in
a southern climate, from which I had scarcely
recovered when intermittent fever attacked
me. This continued at intervals until September,
when congestive fever intervened,
and continued with great violence for the
space of nine days, and only subsided to give
place to the intermittent again. From this,
morbid appetite began to prey upon me. The
ague alternated with a severe dysentery until
March, 1834. Ostematous swellings of the
lower extremities made their appearance, but
gave way to the use of alteratives and
muriated tincture of iron. I became much
emaciated and debilitated; my spleen became
much enlarged; an excessively morbid condition
of the stomach continued; an ungovernable
craving for food of the grossest description,
and other indigestible substances.
In the mean time, an uncontrollable diarrhœa,
which has given me more uneasiness than
every other symptom, came on. "In the month of January, 1806, during my
attendance on the Virginia Legislature, of
which I was then a member, I was very sorely
afflicted with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism;
and about the first of July, in the
same year, after the disease had assumed a
chronic state, I arrived at the Hot Springs in
Virginia much debilitated, requiring two persons
to put me in and take me out of the carriage.
I remained at the Springs sixty-three
days, using the bath once every day except
three. I was weighed the day I got to the
Springs, and also on the day I left them; and
if I was correctly weighed, I gained sixty
pounds in weight in sixty-three days, and remained
free from that complaint for upwards
of twenty years. "In 1826, I had a protracted attack of bilious
fever, which left me in this condition. My
stomach and bowels being much disordered,
accompanied with great flatulency, gave me
from 4 to 6 passages every 24 hours, and
sometimes oftener; my stools mixed with
blood more or less, and sometimes with matter
very offensive. At length a tumor formed
in the lower intestine about the size of a
small walnut, attended with great heat and
itching, which ultimately broke, and I occasionally
discharged considerable quantities of
blood and matter by stool. I then thought, and
still think, that the whole rectum was much
diseased, and I should be compelled to submit
to an operation or fall a victim to the disease.
In addition to many other sufferings, in the
fall of 1831, I had a severe rheumatic attack,
which pervaded my whole muscular system,
but was most distressing about my breast,
chest, bowels and hips. In this situation,
about the first of July following, I went to
the Hot Springs barely able to sit up, and
used the waters freely, drinking and bathing
until the 30th of August, when I left them
much relieved in every way. The ensuing
summer I again returned to the Hot Springs,
and used the waters by drinking and bathing
until the last of August, when I returned
home entirely relieved of bowel disease and
nearly so of my rheumatism. I have again
this summer visited these Springs, where I
have been for three weeks using the waters
as before, and believe myself entirely relieved
of all my complaints, except a little stiffness
in my hips and back. At your request, and for the
benefit of the afflicted, I give you as near as I
can, a statement of my case, which has been
complicated and difficult to describe. I am a
resident of Detroit, State of Michigan. In July,
1829, I was attacked with a bilious fever and
severe inflammation of the stomach, and was
reduced very low by bleeding and medicine.
I remained in a feeble state about six months,
when an ulcer came out on the side of my
ancle nearly the size of a dollar. This has
continued on one or the other, and sometimes
on both of my ancles, ever since except about
two months in March and April last. My
legs have been so much swelled, that I have
been compelled to bandage them to the knee,
most of the time. About three years ago, a
rheumatic disease set in, the cords of my legs
8*
swelled to the knees, and at times to the body,
(mostly on the inside) with hard lumps on
the cords frequently as large as hickory nuts,
and extremely painful. "In the summer of 1836 I visited the Virginia
Springs, with liver disease, as stated by
many physicians. I used the Sulphur Waters
for some time, but without any decided effect.
I then came to the Hot Springs, and after
using the Spout bath for a few days, the pain
in the right side, from a dull, increased to an
acute, which induced me to apply to Dr.
Goode for advice. He gave me ten grains of
calomel, which brought about a most happy
change in my feelings and health; producing
copious discharges of dark bilious matter,
when forty grains, often before taken, produced
but a limited effect. I give you the following statement
of my case. About ten years ago I became
dyspeptic, and was unwell in the usual way,
when at length I became much worse; almost
every thing taken in the stomach produced
pain, and frequently violent spasms, which
threatened death. I experienced no relief except
when under the influence of calomel.
Tiring of which, after suffering for about
two years, I determined to try the Sulphur
Waters. In compliance with your request,
I transmit you an account of my case.
In the latter part of 1836, I had a violent attack
of cholica pictonum, or white lead disease;
which, in despite of the most energetic
treatment, terminated in a paralysis of my
arms and hands, which deprived me almost
entirely of the use of them, with great emaciation
and general debility and prostration. I received on yesterday your
message from Mr. Seth Ward; it affords me
pleasure to comply. The case of rheumatism you desired
the particulars of was that of Mr. J— C—,
of Charleston, S. C., aged eighteen years. He
had been seriously afflicted for some time before
he was put under my protection, which
was on the 17th day of June, when we left
Charleston for the Virginia Springs. We arrived
at the White Sulphur on the 28th of
June, and remained there until the 9th of
July, taking from eight to ten tumblers of the
water daily. I am now erecting a continuous
line of framed house (one story high)
one hundred and sixty feet long, by twenty-one
feet in width, containing twenty-four (fire)
rooms, ten feet by twelve feet in clear, and all
upon the same level, with a neat portico in
front the entire length. I have removed the
house from the Bath near the hotel, and I
mean to convert the bath into a pool with a
railing around it. In the place of this I shall
make two spacious baths sixteen by twenty up
at the Red Chalybeate Springs. A new walk
from the centre of the hotel towards these
Springs, together with other improvements not
only about the hotel, but in the road, fences,
&c., I hope will add both comfort and pleasure
to my future visitors. Through my friends, J. S.
Cook, Esq. and Dr. H. J. Bowditch, I received
specimens of the water, red deposit and mud,
from the Red Sulphur Springs, in Virginia,
for chemical analysis. It was with great interest
that I engaged in the experiments, as
very little was known of the chemical composition
of this water, although its medicinal
effects had rendered the watering-place a celebrated
one. I have sent Mr. Cook an account
of the results obtained. Since my
observations were communicated, Mr. Cook
has allowed me to peruse a copy of a letter
from Professor Rogers, dated in May, 1835,
in which is contained a notice of a peculiar
organic matter contained in the water. He
has therefore anticipated my discovery, by
some years. I do not, however, consider this
substance identical with baragene or glairine
of the Warm Springs of Italy and France.
It is, so far as I know, new and peculiar, and
seems to be an azotised base combined with
sulphur, and so combined as to neutralize the
distinctive characters of the sulphur. The hy-drosulphuric
acid gas (sulphuretted hydrogen)
found in the water, is produced through the
agency of this body; either by its action on
the sulphates present, or more probably the
substance itself disengages hydro. sulp. acid,
before reaching the surface of the earth, abstracting
oxygen from air already dissolved
in the water. It is in favour of this view that
less oxygen is present in this than in common
water, the mixture of oxygen and nitrogen in
river water often giving 38 per 100 of oxygen.
I have minutely examined the saline contents
of the water, and the results sent you are
those which have been checked by independent
experiments. The almost entire absence
of chlorine, or muriatic acid, is a singular fact.
I examined every bottle for chlorine, and although
in most of them traces were found,
they were not constantly observed, and quite as
likely to be derived from accidental sources, as
from the water. The largest quantity found
would have carried my decimals to four, or
five, and is wholly unimportant. The water
gives by tests indications like those observed
when chlorine is present, but the appearance
is fallacious. I have arranged the acids and
basis according to the views of Murray and
Berzelius, and experiments show that in this
case these views are correct. The alkaline
action of this water is due to the solution of
the carbonate of magnesia in carbonic acid
(Murray's fluid magnesia), and the peculiar
substance distinctive of this water seems to be
dissolved in this solution. I. When separated from a solution by evaporation,
or by drying from a gelatinous state,
it forms greasy films, which do not darken
solutions of lead or copper. We think that a candid review of the analysis
of the Red Sulphur and of our remarks
on its action, founded on a long observation
and experience, will lead every unbiassed
mind to conclude that the claims of this water
as a curative agent are well founded; but
we do not mean to rest our case here; we can
prove beyond a doubt that this water exerts
an influence over the circulation that no
other agent has been known to exert. The
evidences which we have received of this fact
in the course of our nine years of ownership,
would fill a large volume; but we will content
ourselves with publishing a few recent
cases in addition to those given by the late
Dr. Huntt in his pamphlet on this Spring.
Few persons were better qualified than that
lamented physician to make observations on
a mineral water. His perception was clear,
his observation acute, his discrimination accurate,
his judgment sound, and his integrity
19
incorruptible; and after witnessing with his
own eyes the effects of this water, and reflecting
well and long on what he was about to
assert, he pays it the following compliment: On my way to this place, at a
public house where we stopped to dine, I
picked up a newspaper, the Western Whig,
dated 14th August (last month), in which I
find there had been a committee formed to
take into consideration a report prevailing
prejudicial to the curative qualities of the
Mineral Waters at the Red Sulphur Springs,
&c., &c., which report was proven to be false
by said committee, as well as by a number of
certificates signed by gentlemen of high reputation
and intelligence. I have purposely delayed
advising you of the state of my health since
my return to this city. The change which
came over me while under the operation of
the Red Sulphur water was so sudden, and so
great, that I confess I doubted whether the
good effects would be permanent. It is now
upwards of two months since I left the Red
Sulphur Spring, and I am happy to be able
to assure you that my health is even better
than when I left you. My cough and expectoration,
21
which was confined almost entirely
to the morning when I returned to this city,
has now pretty much subsided, and my lungs
are evidently stronger than they were then.
I have, moreover, gained some two or three
pounds in weight since I returned. Having been a sufferer for more than
three years, from organic disease of the heart, connected
with bronchitis, pronounced so by eminent physicians of S.
Carolina, I had the good fortune to visit your Spring, and
using the water freely for nearly two weeks, with a decidedly
good effect upon my obstinate disease, I feel it a duty I
owe to the public, and to other sufferers like myself, to say,
that I find it to possess none of the irritating quality that
some persons suppose. So highly have I been pleased with
the medicinal qualities of the water of your Spring, that I
beg you will send me a barrel of it containing 30 or 35 gallons. The undersigned, visiters at the Salt
Sulphur Springs, prompted by a sense of grateful respect
for your kind and unwearied attentions to ourselves and
families, beg leave to convey to you our assurance of entire
satisfaction with the arrangements of your establishment.
Such have been the cordial hospitalities and ample
and varied accommodations of your house, that we shall
ever look back to our temporary residence with you with
pleasure and delight. Having been greatly benefitted by drinking
the waters of your valuable Spring, I deem it a duty
to my fellow-beings to leave this statement of my case in
your hands.—For six months previous to my coming here,
I had been suffering with a most obstinate constipation of
the bowels, which I had tried in vain to remove by medicine,
diet, and exercise; and during that time I could not
obtain a stool without the aid of an injection, and great
pain attending it. After being here ten days, the Salt Sulphur
water began to act freely on my bowels, and now, at
the expiration of a month, I am glad to inform you that the
constipation is entirely removed, my health and strength
restored, and I am now going home in cheerful spirits to
my friends. Mrs. — left her house in a state of great debility,
scarcely able to walk, and was but little recruited by the
journey. She reached the Salt Sulphur on the 20th July
having stopped a week at the White Sulphur on the way
but without using the water. After remaining three days
at the Salt Sulphur, and partaking of the waters there
she proceeded to the Red Sulphur, and staid there six days
returning on the 29th July to the Salt, having, while at the
Red, used two or three tumblers of the water per diem; remained
at the Salt Sulphur until the 9th of August. When
Mrs. — arrived first at the Salt Sulphur, she weighed 91
pounds, and was unable to walk any distance, or use any
degree of exercise, without suffering greatly. Some years since I was afflicted with an obstinate and
dangerous disease, from which I was unable to obtain relief
until I visited the Salt Sulphur Spring, near Union, in the
county of Monroe. The use of that water restored me to
perfect health; which makes it my duty to state, at the request
of the proprietors, the high opinion I have formed of
its medicinal efficacy. I consider the Salt Sulphur water
eminently useful in all cases that require cathartic remedies,
particularly such diseases of the liver and stomach as proceed
from biliary obstructions. The operation upon the
bowels is active, but not violent; cleansing effectually the
alimentary canal, and promoting digestion in a remarkable
degree. The cathartic tendency of the water is so mild and
certain, that the stomach and bowels are never oppressed
or irritated; and whilst the healthy functions of the system
are enabled to take their course, the suspended causes of
disease are gradually worn away. In the year 1812 I visited the Sweet and Sulphur Springs.
I was then laboring under a nervous debility and extreme
costiveness. I derived much benefit from the use of all
those waters, but found none so strong and active as the
Salt Sulphur. I concur in the opinion with many, that this
is a valuable water, and should be more sought after. Intending to leave your excellent and
perfectly arranged establishment to-morrow on my return
home, I cannot, however, do so without expressing my
thanks to you for your politeness and attention to myself,
(and I observed the same attention to others,) during my
stay at the Salt Sulphur; and I have much pleasure in saying,
that the use of the Salt Sulphur Spring water has been
eminently beneficial to me, for, prior to my coming here, I
had been suffering for upwards of eighteen months from a
total derangement of stomach from a long residence in a
warm climate (Bermuda), say, bad bile, great acidity of
stomach, and an overflow of mucus to the lungs; in short,
I had the dyspepsia with all its disagreeables, accompanied
with debility of body. Having tried the White Sulphur for
ten days without benefit, I came here, and in a week I
found relief from all my complaints; but my medical adviser,
who practised at the White, recommended me to try
the Red Sulphur, notwithstanding my having written to
him of my improved state,—my pulse, for one thing, being
reduced from 80 to 73 beats. I went to the Red, and staid
there eight days;*
*We have a distinct recollection of this gentleman's case. He had
been laboring under chronic irritation of the stomach, which, by too
free use of the Sulphur waters, and perhaps imprudence in diet, was
converted into an acute form, about the time he reached the Red Sulphur.
Dr. Saunders, then resident physician at the Red, instituted a
vigorous treatment, which in a few days subdued the attack, and the
patient's system was now in a condition to receive all the benefit
which he subsequently derived from the Salt Sulphur.
my pulse rose on the third day to 82, the
fifth day 89, the sixth day to 96 and 100. I was obliged to
be leeched, which reduced my pulse to 84. I had three headaches
and great dryness of tongue; so on the 9th day in
the morning, I returned to the Salt, where, on the fourth
day, my pulse was again at 73, on the sixth day at 71, and
has continued from that day to this, varying only from 71
to 72, night and morning. I have been affected for five or six years with an obstinate
disease of the liver, and dyspepsia, and have visited
nearly all the Springs in the mountains without having experienced
any material benefit, until I came to this place.
I have applied to some of the best physicians without being
relieved, but am happy to state, that the Salt Sulphur water
has had a most beneficial effect in removing many of the
inconveniences attending my disease, insomuch that I am
induced to carry a portion of it home with me. During the summer of 1845 I was induced to try the Iodine
Spring, at the Salt Sulphur Springs, in Monroe, for an obstinate
and (as I then supposed) incurable eruption on the skin
of one of my children. The disease first appeared, at the age
of three weeks, in the shape of small red spots upon the cheeks,
succeeded very soon by little watery pimples, which rose and
broke continually, but without healing. In a short time the
affected parts increased in size as well as quantity, until they
extended from the face to the head and neck, and thence over
the entire body—presenting one uniform and consolidated appearance
of disease over the whole surface. The neck, head,
and face discharged matter from the scabs, and the legs from
the knee down. For fourteen months I kept the child constantly
under medical treatment, but without any permanent
benefit, or any prospect of recovery, until, at the instance of
Dr. M.—(who at that time was residing at the Salt,) I was
induced to make a trial of its waters. He represented the
disease as a constitutional affection of the blood which could
not be relieved, and which ought not to be arrested very suddenly,
but assured me, very confidently, that it would yield to
nothing with so much certainty and success as to the external
application of the Iodine water at the Salt. The child
was bathed twice a day in the water made gently tepid, of
which it drank pretty copiously during the ceremony. About
the fourth day there was an evident change for the better, and
the child from that time continued to improve daily, until at
the expiration of six weeks, the sores had healed, the scabs
had disappeared, the pimples and splotches had subsided, and
the skin for the first time for more than fourteen months assumed
a natural and healthy appearance. I have no doubt
by remaining a few weeks longer every vestige of the eruption
would have been removed. But I consider the disease
at this time as effectually conquered, and as having changed
its type completely. Indeed, the only indications ever visible
are an occasional roughness on the skin. As we used no
medicine, except occasionally some mild cathartic, I feel no
hesitation in ascribing all the results that I have stated to the
effects of the Iodine water. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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