The new methods of cure at the hot mineral springs of Bath : with especial reference to the Nauheim system as practised at the baths of Bath / by Henry William Freeman.

  • Freeman, Henry William, 1842-1897.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The new methods of cure at the hot mineral springs of Bath : with especial reference to the Nauheim system as practised at the baths of Bath / by Henry William Freeman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    immersion diminished. At the same time the use o'f the mineral water for drinking purposes requires much judgment in the heart forms of advanced age, especially in the cases of patients suffering from asthenia and old dyspeptic cases with dilated stomach. And while we are on this subject, let us say that gymnastics should be avoided in advanced aortic incompetency, in marked cases of fatty degenera- tion of the heart muscle, and in atheroma of the blood vessels. Massage as given in Bath, how- ever, can well be substituted, as it removes venous stagnation of the surface of the body, increases peripheral circulation and stimulates generally the muscular system to renewed action; and with better nutrition of the cardiac muscle we should naturally look for a compensating hypertrophy of the organ. There is a large division of cardiac valvular disease with absolute loss of compensation. These are the cases which the best men of our profession have failed to relieve, and the patient has often been ordered to bed for absolute rest, and to await the time of his dissolution.. Here this treatment steps in and those who have followed out these desperate cases know full well how much good has been derived when all medical measures have failed. We see numbers of these patients return to their business and come back here for a repetition of their treatment, for the most part restored, and, as they say, working sound. Oertel's method of Terain Cur (walking up hills and 'climbing mountains) can only be justifiably ordered for people who suffer from obesity, with languid health, and general debility of the muscular system, but without marked valvular mischief and without much deficiency of compensation. To order this treatment in aortic incompetency and cases of dilated aorta would be positively courting disaster, and our own Stokes knew better than to adopt this method as a crucial system.