fidence to the reader from the fact that they coincide throughout with the recorded cases of success or failure of the various Spas, being deduced from scrupulous and careful observations extending over a number of years.
The best mode of reaching the various Spas is also indicated in the present volume; but for minute descriptions of hotels, price of living, &c., I must refer the reader to other sources, as I thought these matters too transitory to be of permanent value, and somewhat foreign to the principal object of these Lectures.
The necessity in certain cases for avoiding particular mineral waters altogether is here pointed out with the same impartiality as their curative effects. For the Spas are far from being a panacea for all complaints to which the human organism is liable. On the contrary, I would limit their sphere of action to those cases in which the ordinary medical treatment has failed to restore the patient.
They are not only entirely inapplicable in acute diseases, where prompter remedial agents are required, but even in chronic disorders I would always advocate the preference of medical treatment amid the comforts of home, and under the care of those who are fully acquainted with the patient's constitution and morbid dispositions. On the other hand, when the sufferer has arrived at that stage in which the usual pharmaceutic remedies cease to forward recovery, so that change of air becomes advisable to increase the prospects of health, then I think it highly useful to consult the respective virtues of the Spas, and to recommend the appropriate one, with due regard to the intrinsic and extraneous properties detailed in the present volume, for which I earnestly request an indulgent consideration.