The Spas of Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, and _Italy. By
Thomas Moore Madden, M.R.I.A. (Newby.) — The chief bathing- places of the. Continent have been visited by Dr. Madden, and are described in this volume. For general readers there is not quite enough detail, and the accounts are almost too practical to be lively. But this is not Dr. Madden's intention. He evidently writes both for the invalid and the tourist, and while we admit that his book will be of great use to the former, we think the latter has not been sufficiently consulted. Sometimes Dr. Madden enters into the subject of scenery or of manners, and does justice, or comparative justice, to beauty and character. But it seems to us that, on the whole, there is only a sufficient supply of light reading and general interest in his book to beguile the invalid on his way from one spa to another. Arriving at each spa, the invalid will certainly find Dr. Madden very full and trust- worthy. The analysis of the waters and the catalogue of infirmities for which they are adapted make up much of the value of the work, and Dr. Madden is not to be blamed because he has not formed a theory of mineral springs, like so many of his predecessors. One doctor attributes the success of the mineral bathe to a galvanic fluid in the water. Another says they contain a. peculiar vital principle. Another talks of thermal or telluric heat, differing from ordinary heat. We hope, however, that none of these doctors would talk of "a strata," or would jumble up Latin after the fashion of Dr. Madden and his printer.
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