Notes on the therapeutics of radium in the Bath waters : a handbook for the Medical Profession, published with the approval of the Bath Committee of the British Medical Association / compiled by John Hatton, Director of the Baths.

Date:
[1912?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the therapeutics of radium in the Bath waters : a handbook for the Medical Profession, published with the approval of the Bath Committee of the British Medical Association / compiled by John Hatton, Director of the Baths. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    REPORT ON THE MINERAL WATERS OF BATH. By Professor Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. Some years after my discovery of helium in 1895, Lord Rayleigh made an estimate of the amount present in the gases escaping from the King’s Well, and found that in 10,000 volumes of these gases, there are 12 volumes of helium. Helium, like argon, is one of the “inert” gases, forming no chemical compounds, and therefore without any therapeutic action. Its presence in Continental mineral waters was demonstrated in 1896 by my then assistant, Dr. Travers, and myself, and M. Moureu of the French Academy of Medicine, and M. Bouchard have made extensive researches on mineral waters, chiefly French, and have found helium to be present in larger or smaller quantity in many of them. The cause of the therapeutic action of such waters has been obscure ; mere. artificial mixtures of the very ordinary salts which they contain have been said not to produce the same effects as the use of waters fresh from the springs ; and it was not evident how the presence of helium, curious though it might be, could be credited with such beneficial results as are undoubtedly produced by “ taking the waters.”
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