A guide to the use of the Saratoga mineral waters / By W.O. Stillman.

  • Stillman, William Olin, 1856-
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to the use of the Saratoga mineral waters / By W.O. Stillman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    II.—Alterative a^std Diuretic Waters. Springs of this class are the Red, Star, Empire, High Rock, and Crystal, etc. Most promin^ext co:NSTiTUE]srTS.—Alterative action often depends as much upon combination as the effect of any one in- gredient singly. Sodium Chloride; Potassium Chloride; Ily- drogen Peroxide^ and Iodide and Ferrous Salts, Lime, etc., may be instanced under thi's heading. Sodium chloride. All alteratives act largely by stimulating the skin, kidneys, and the glandular system generally—and by promoting a rapid change of tissue. Nothing does this more universally than chloride of sodium. This arises from the fact that it constitutes an important element in the secretions of all mucous surfaces, and in fact nearly all the secretions and excre- tions of the body. All glands—as the liver, kidneys, and small glands in the walls of the intestines, etc.—are made active in se- creting their various natural products, as bile, urine, etc., by such substances as are, when absorbed into the circulation, car- ried out of the blood by these various glands; each having its appropriate stimulant in such substances as it especially ex- cretes. Chloride of sodium is the chief source of the liydrochlo- ric acid of the stomach, so important in digestion, and this plays an important part in that vital process. In the blood it occurs in the proportion of four to six parts in a thousand, and in the urine, according to Berzelius, in four and a half parts in a thou- sand. There is normally two to four ounces of this salt in the human body. Potassium chloride. The action of this substance is simi- lar to the preceding, which it closely resembles, but it is not as important to the health of the body. It occurs particularly in the red blood-corpuscles.
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