These Baths Are Paved With Marble, And Supplied With Water Each
By A Large Brass Cock, Which You Can Turn At Pleasure.
At one end
of this edifice, there is an octagon, open at top, having a
bason, with a stone
Pillar in the middle, which discharges water
from the same source, all round, by eight small brass cocks; and
hither people of all ranks come of a morning, with their glasses,
to drink the water, or wash their sores, or subject their
contracted limbs to the stream. This last operation, called the
douche, however, is more effectually undergone in the private
bath, where the stream is much more powerful. The natural warmth
of this water, as nearly as I can judge from recollection, is
about the same degree of temperature with that in the Queen's
Bath, at Bath in Somersetshire. It is perfectly transparent,
sparkling in the glass, light and agreeable to the taste, and may
be drank without any preparation, to the quantity of three or
four pints at a time. There are many people at Aix who swallow
fourteen half pint glasses every morning, during the season,
which is in the month of May, though it may be taken with equal
benefit all the year round. It has no sensible operation but by
urine, an effect which pure water would produce, if drank in the
same quantity.
If we may believe those who have published their experiments,
this water produces neither agitation, cloud, or change of
colour, when mixed with acids, alkalies, tincture of galls, syrup
of violets, or solution of silver. The residue, after boiling,
evaporation, and filtration, affords a very small proportion of
purging salt, and calcarious earth, which last ferments with
strong acids. As I had neither hydrometer nor thermometer to
ascertain the weight and warmth of this water; nor time to
procure the proper utensils, to make the preparations, and repeat
the experiments necessary to exhibit a complete analysis, I did
not pretend to enter upon this process; but contented myself with
drinking, bathing, and using the douche, which perfectly answered
my expectation, having, in eight days, almost cured an ugly
scorbutic tetter, which had for some time deprived me of the use
of my right hand. I observed that the water, when used
externally, left always a kind of oily appearance on the skin:
that when, we boiled it at home, in an earthen pot, the steams
smelled like those of sulphur, and even affected my lungs in the
same manner: but the bath itself smelled strong of a lime-kiln.
The water, after standing all night in a bottle, yielded a
remarkably vinous taste and odour, something analogous to that of
dulcified spirit of nitre. Whether the active particles consist
of a volatile vitriol, or a very fine petroleum, or a mixture of
both, I shall not pretend to determine: but the best way I know
of discovering whether it is really impregnated with a vitriolic
principle, too subtil and fugitive for the usual operations of
chymistry, is to place bottles, filled with wine, in the bath, or
adjacent room, which wine, if there is really a volatile acid, in
any considerable quantity, will be pricked in eight and forty
hours.
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