Box 13, Folder 1: Artesian Well, Draft Pages

SPARTA AS A RESORT FOR THE INVALID.

THE Turkish Bath AS A CURATIVE AGENT, GIVEN IN CONNECTION WITH THE Mineral Spring Waters, of SPARTA, WISCONSIN.

-BY-

D. C. BEEBE, M.D.

[in pencil: Public Park Ida House]

1873. D. McBride & Son. Sparta, Wis.

[in pencil: Dr. Asa B. Nicols Warner House Pub. Squr]

AS A RESORT FOR THE INVALID THE TURKISH BATH, AS A CURATIVE AGENT, GIVEN IN CONNECTION WITH THE Mineral Spring Waters, OF SPARTA, WISCONSIN, BY D. C. BEEBE, M.D.

1873 D. McBRIDE & SON SPARTA, WIS.

LOCATION

The object of this pamphlet is to point invalids to the great value of the Turkish Bath, given in connection with the Mineral Waters of this place, for the cure of diseases.

Sparta, Wisconsin, the little village so blessed with this health-giving means, is nestled among the bluffs, near the head waters of the La Crosse River, at the junction of the Milwaukee & St. Paul and Chicago & Northwestern Railways, thirty miles from the Mississippi River.

As a resort for health and pleasure seekers this locality has no rival in the Northwest. Minnesota enjoys no climatic or atmospheric advantages not offered here, situated as it is just across the Mississippi River, in latitude 44 [degrees], high and dry among the bluffs. It is a fact beyond question that this place and the surrounding country, occupying the upper portion of the La Crosse Valley, enjoys a reputation for healthfulness almost unprecedented. Health is indeed as contagious here as is disease in many malarious districts where invalids resort, and where, if cured of their first ailment they often contract another more pernicious.

HEALING WATERS

The healing properties of these Mineral Springs were discovered soon after the sinking of the first well in October, 1867. Residents of this village who were suffering with chronic diseases of various forms, daily drank of this water, and many were permanently cured, and could attribute it to no other causes. These remarkable cures, com-

bined with other causes, led our physicians, and also several chemists, to the investigation of its medical properties, and from their investigations and analyses, it was ascertained that the water contained many valuable chemical combinations known to the materia medica.

ANALYSIS OF THE WATER One gallon contains of the Carbonate of Iron 106.68 Grains '' Magnesium 11.31 '' '' Lime 3.02 '' Sulphate of Soda 16.85 '' '' Potassium 7.05 '' Lime 2.63 '' Chloride of Potassium .28 '' '' Sodium 14.17 '' Iodide of Iron 12.43 '' '' Sodium 5.48 '' Phosphate of Soda 6.60 '' Aluminium 3.86 '' Silica .72 ''

While many remarkable cures have been effected from the almost indiscriminate use of these waters, their full value as a curative means was not realized until they were given under the direction of competent physicians, and given in connection with the Turkish Bath.

During the past two years the expectations of the most sanguine have been more than realized by the union of these curative means in the treatment of diseases. Of the many who have availed themselves of this treatment, few indeed, have gone away not either permanently cured of greatly benefitted.

It will be seen from the analysis, that these waters are both chalybeate and saline - two valuable qualities rarely combined in mineral spring water. The carbonate of iron, which is in excess, and held in perfect solution, in these waters, is admitted by all physicians to be the king of tonics. It is to this remedy that we resort when the blood is impoverished from any cause; when the cheek is pale and the lip blanched; when the vital forces are low and there is weakness and langour, accompanied by palpitation of the heart, neuralgic pains in different parts of the body, nervousness, sleeplessness, &c. It is this element that is deficient in this condition of the blood, and which is abundantly supplied in this water. In a therapeutic point of view, the salts of potassium, soda, and magnesium stand second to the carbonate of iron. To these properties we owe

5 the cure of dyspepsia, rheumatism, diseases of the kidneys, and the many others kindred ailments that depend upon an excess of acid in the secretions and general circulation.

THE TURKISH BATH

The bath considered in this pamphlet, in connection with these mineral waters, called the ''Turkish Bath,'' is an institution of great antiquity. At one time in the fourth century Publius Victor counted 900 baths in the city of Rome, and it is said that for several hundred years in that city, the treatment of diseases resided almost entirely with this means. The remains of some of these extensive institutions are even now being unearthed from that long lost city of Pompeii, and Senaca and Lucien still awaken our astonishment by their descriptions of the refinements and luxury which characterized these establishments. The celebrated Medea, who astonished all Greece, in the time of the Argonauts, by her wonderful miracles, which the art of magic enabled her to accomplish, owed her success to the power she had to rejuvenating the old and infirm, and ancient writers tell us that she obtained this marvelous result by the use of baths of mineral waters with which she was familiar. From the days of Homer, who represented his heroes bathing in vast piscines, to those of the contemporaries of the fall of the Roman Empire, when all the appliances of unbridled luxury were found in the public baths, the use of baths has always played an important part in the customs of antiquity. But with the fall of the Roman Empire the thermae, or hot air bath, as well as many of the arts practiced at that time, went to disuse in a great measure, to be revived and practiced in this enlightened century, with the benefit of the accumulated experience of professional men and scientists of all these intervening years.

The popularity which the Turkish Bath has gained in this country is of comparatively recent date. In England, and throughout Great Britain generally, it has been employed for more than a quarter of a century, with marked success. In Turkey it has long been regarded as the most safe and efficient cure for all classes of diseases; and to-day it stands pre-eminent as a hygienic, prophylactic and cura