A brief notice of a portion of a work by William Burke, entitled "The mineral springs of western Virginia" : with preliminary remarks on the relative virtues of the saline and gaseous contents of the white sulphur water / by John J. Moorman.

  • Moorman, J. J. (John Jennings), 1802-1885.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief notice of a portion of a work by William Burke, entitled "The mineral springs of western Virginia" : with preliminary remarks on the relative virtues of the saline and gaseous contents of the white sulphur water / by John J. Moorman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    relative merits which the solid and gaseous ingre- dients of the water possess as remedial agents. It would be tedious, and, to many, uninteresting, to detail the several steps and multiplied experiments which led us to conclusions upon the subject, satis- factory to our own mind, and upon which we have established certain practical principles in the use of the water, which have enabled us to prescribe it, especially for nervous and excitable patients, with far greater success than heretofore. It is sufficient for our purpose at present, to state, that while we freely admit that the sulphuretted hydrogen gas, which abounds in the water, is an active nervine stimulant, and therefore may be a most potent agent in some cases, we are fully impressed with the belief that either in its direct or indirect effects, we must look mainly to the solid contents of the water for its alterative power as well as for its activity manifested in its operations through the different emunctories of the human body. Whether the efficacy of the solid contents of this water be owing to the specific character of any one, or to all of the thirteen different salts of which it is composed, and which exist in the water in the most minute form of subdivision, and in this condi- tion enter the circulation, and course through the whole system, applying themselves appropriately to diseased tissues; or, whether its efficacy depends upon the evolution of sulphuretted hydrogen gas after the