Related article: uninstructed eye, each day seems to bring something quite new before us, but again the one who ought to know points out how the changements de decorations are ef- fected. And there is a feeling not far removed from melancholy in seeing the bravery worn by some poor girl whose haggard face and crippled limbs tell of a wasting disease, slowly sapping the springs of life. We are reminded of the gallant struggle against mortality which, as we think, should be 334 BAILY S MAGAZINE. [MAY sympathised with rather than derided. " Add to this cheek a little red, One would not sure be hideous when one's dead." Amidst all the fashionable throng too we may see some old peasant women wearing the national cos- tume, of which the great feature is such an enormous breadth of beam as we can hardly believe to be founded on nature. A country's customs sometimes take a curious form and this one has not been dictated by elegance. But our chief business at Spru- delheim is to use the springs outwardly or inwardly and for this we must receive directions from a medical man on the spot. Of course in a sanitary resort there are many doctors who all claim to know best the resources of nature, but there is one who takes the lead in practice. Like Eclipse, he is first and the rest nowhere. We have been placed in his hands and he has organised our treatment. Let us stroll down to the Badhaus in which we have been told to begin, and our feelings have been described by Sir Francis Head in his charming book, " Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau," on similar experiences sixty-five years ago. " Health is such an inestimable blessing ; it colours so highly the little picture of life ; it sweetens so exquisitely the small cup of our existence ; it is so like sunshine, in the absence of which the world with all its beauties would be as it once was without form and void, that I can conceive nothing which a man ought more eagerly to do than get between the stones of that mill which is to grind him young again, particularly when, as in my case, the operation was to be attended with no pain. When therefore I had once left my hof to walk to the bath, I felt as if no power on earth Parafon Forte Dsc could arrest my progress." How times are changed since these words were written. Head was talking of Langen Sen wal bach and we are at Sprudelheim (not very far distant after all), but the arrangements in 1833 °f b°th bathing resorts were probably more or less alike and so they are in 1898. One small Badhaus was then sufficient to accommodate all the patients that came. Here, in Sprudelheim, there are now six palatial buildings, each of which contains a number of excellently- fitted rooms in which the pre- scribed time of soaking may be passed. In Head's day, one man and one woman were sufficient to prepare all the necessary baths. Now the name of the attendants is legion and they have enough to do to provide bath after bath every forty- five minutes, the ut- most limit of time during which one room may be occupied. We have been advised to arrange for a feste stunde (a fixed hour) at which we may every day present ourselves with the certainty that we shall find a bath chamber at our disposal. Now, among such a crowd of bathers as there is, it is not easy to have a convenient fixed hoar allotted. The badmddchtn, who takes the tickets of admittance and rules the routine of the place, shakes her head and says that every hour of every bath-room is already engaged, but she will see what can be done next week. We bethink ourselves that a him has been given by our medical adviser of the efficacy of *• a good tip," and we furtively produce some silver. There is a virtuous look of self-denial in response and we are reminded that all tips are strictly forbidden by the adminis- tration. There are several by- standers however and we cannot I899-] SPRUDELHEJM. 335 help thinking that it is their presence which enforces such stern compliance with the law. We saunter out of the door and approach a window which is behind the bad made fun's chair of office. Curiously enough she opens the window and looks out. How easy it is to renew the interrupted colloquy and to pass a hand containing a douceur over the window sill. The window is again closed and, after smoking a Parafon Forte 500 Mg meditative cigarette on a shady seat in the park, we again present ourselves at the damsel's official table. How odd ! everything can be arranged as we wish and will we take our first bath at once ? It is a buxom and pleasing looking badmddchcn and, like all ladies who occupy a prominent position in * the world, she is an object of the greatest interest to the other sex. It is seldom that her chair is not surrounded by some of her many admirers and even arrangements for baths give opportunity for badinage and pretty speeches. It is rumoured indeed that the fair official receives many offers of matrimony in the course of the season. We accept the immediate bath, and a stalwart man takes us in charge and shows us into a room, clean, light and airy, with a sofa, a chair, a toilette table and a glass. The taps are turned on in the bath, which becomes filled with a brownish fluid. A towel is spread where the head is to rest and another on the floor where we are to step. A huge thermometer is used to see that the temperature of the water is at 3 2° C, and we are left to plunge in and compose ourselves to remain immersed while the hands of the clock on the wall travel over Buy Parafon Forte the ordered period. This clock becomes an object of intense interest for we have been warned vol. lxxi. — no. 471. that terrible things may happen if we remain in tr.e bath a minute more or less than the exact time of the prescription. Bat tnis timepiece has some Parafon Forte Dsc 500 Mg eccentricities,