The mere presence of hydrosulphuric acid gas does not constitute an hepatic water:  for the solid ingredients are essential; and these are found in that of the Eureka White Sulphur Spring, proving it to be a very valuable water.  It is successfully used in the long list of diseases for which, sulphur water, both internally and externally, is so highly recommended by the medical faculty.  Sulphur waters are very useful in the treatment of rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, and kindred diseases, and in glandular affections and certain chronic diseases of the stomach, liver, intestines, spleen, kidneys, bladder and uterus, and in dropsy, scrofula, chlorosis and mercurial diseases.  It is beneficial, used both internally and externally in the form of baths at different degrees of temperature, best determined in each case by the physician under whose advice, as a general rule, they should be used.  The water is highly beneficial in cutaneous diseases, inflamed eyes, etc.  If the person is dyspeptic the non-gaseous water should be used in small doses.  It may be as well to add that such waters should not be used if there is a tendency to cerebral disease, or in cases of consumption and cancer.

[Illustration:  CONGRESS SPRING BOTTLING-HOUSE.]

The water of this sulphur spring is remarkably pellucid.  The fountain discharges upwards of 20,000 gallons per day.

A large and commodious bathing-house, containing fifty bath-rooms, with excellent and ample accommodations and superior facilities, affords warm and cold sulphur water baths.  They are a real luxury.

This completes our list of the important springs.  Mineral water of considerable merit has been found in several other places in the village and its vicinage, which, if situated elsewhere, would doubtless excite marked attention and popularity, but in the midst of Saratoga’s brilliant galaxy and in the absence of any distinguishing peculiarity, they possess at present “no name.”

DIRECTIONS FOR THE USE OF THE WATERS.[B]

The CATHARTIC waters, as a cathartic, should be taken only before breakfast in the morning, and possibly before retiring at night, because in the morning the body, refreshed by sleep, is best prepared for the water, and the stomach is empty.  Two or three glasses are usually sufficient, if drank within a short interval and only a few minutes before breakfast.  Many physicians attribute the cathartic effect to the “stimulus of distention” as well as to the absorption of the mineral properties, and for this purpose the water should not be sipped but drank.  Before eating, the sipping of a little tea or coffee will make the waters more efficacious.

None of the cathartic waters should be drank in large quantities immediately before, during or within two hours after meals, as they are then liable to disturb digestion and prevent nutrition.