A visit to the Purton spa : with a short account of the extraordinary properties and effects of its sulphated and bromo-iodated spring / by Robert H. Bakewell.

  • Bakewell, Robert Hall.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A visit to the Purton spa : with a short account of the extraordinary properties and effects of its sulphated and bromo-iodated spring / by Robert H. Bakewell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    {'ore couple with it another very remarkable case, in which the action of the water on the liver was signally marked. A farmer, apparently between 40 and 50 years of age, had been a suflFerer from dyspepsia of the most aggravated kind for eighteen years. All the usual symptoms of this malady had been present, such as flatulence, oppression and pain at the pit of the stomach, great depression of spirits, and latterly frequent vomiting of his food, after which a temporary relief was obtained. He had tried every medical man in the neigh- bourhood, and a great number of quack remedies besides. Still the dyspepsia increased, until at length not a single meal was digested properly. About fifteen months ago, he began to drink the Purton water; after he had taken it for ten days, with only the ordinary eflFects on the kidneys and bowels, he began to pass from the bowels a substance which he described as being as black as ink. He passed a quantity of this daily for a week, with daily improvement in his health and dys- peptic symptoms. At the end of the week, the evacuations became natural and healthy; and he positively declared to me that since then he has digested every meal as comfort- ably as any man could, and that he has not suffered from the slightest discomfort after eating, or indigestion in any form, from that time to this. He also stated that whereas before he was very thin and weak, his health and strength, as might be expected, have vastly improved, and, to use his own words, he feels a different man altogether. There can be little doubt, I think, that the black substance passed con- sisted of inspissated bile, with which probably the gall-bladder was filled, and the liver loaded. The fact that as this was removed from the system the dyspeptic symptoms disappeared, shows pretty clearly that the liver was in this case the fans et origo mali. Another case, which is of rather an anomalous kind, was that of a young farmer, who had had very severe diarrhoea for upwards of a fortnight. It had resisted all treatment,
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