Louis Landouzy

“ Not only as a CURATIVE, because it stops the beginning evolution of their pharyngeal, laryngo-tracheal, bronchial and pleuro-pulmonary alterations — but also as a PREVENTIVE, because it modifies, with their temperament, their aptitudes and their functional habits, and prevents their functional deviations from becoming organic — Mont-Dore is the station for and children adolescents; children who are so much exposed through neuro-arthritis, to congestive and spasmodic affections of the respiratory apparatus. ”

“ You will remember that a case of pronounced angeio-sclerosis would be badly placed here, if not on account of the thermal medication, at least on account of the altitude; and if in certain emphysematic bronchitic patients the Mont-Dore cure very efficaciously relieves the consecutive overworked state imposed on the right ventricule, it must not be forgotten that on the other hand neither the thermal treatment nor the High-air cure would be suitable to persons affected with cardiopathy which was not entirely secondary or more especially one which might be insufficiently compensated. ”

“ Reserving for Eaux-Bonnes or for Allevard those suffering from a torpid form of tuberculosis, and for La Bourboule persons suffering from scro-fular or from hereditary dystrophia; in whom the organic ground is highly susceptible to bacterial influence, and on the slightest provocation changes the fear into a reality, we must select those among the tuberculous patients who have an arthritic temperament and a congestive reaction, and send them here to Mont-Dore. ”

“ Among the neuro-arthritics, it is not those suffering from chronic not spasmodic hydrorrhoea, but those who are attacked with congestive rhinopharyngitis, with or without propagation towards the fallopian tubes, who have a chance of being cured at Mont-Dore. Those again who suffer from hay-fever or from spasmodic rhino-bronchitis are very often cured or sensibly improved, provided of course that the treatment is repeated for several years. ”

“ Hence the reason why Mont-Dore, with her hygienic installation, her richness in hydro-mineral medicine and her complex accessories, including the funicular railway to the Capucin table-land, is the medication, if not specific, at least particulary special, marvellously adapted to persons affected in their respiratory organs; and this regards both : the patients who are only at their beginning of diathesic and professional irritations or congestions following infectious diseases (tuberculosis, influenza, measles, etc.) , — just as well as those already victimed by localised inflammations. ”

“ If in a general manner of speaking, it is among the neuro-arthritic patients affected with functional or organic troubles of the respiratory organs, that the clientele of Mont-Dore may be recruited, you will of course remember that not only the grave affections of the nervous system but also an excessively exaggerated neurasthenic excitability badly support the mountain climate. ”

“ As far as our bacillary patients are concerned, those among them who are born or who have become arthritic are most likely to benefit by the Mont-Dore treatment. This is not only because the peculiar mode of deve-
lopement of their bacillosis is due to their arthritic temperament either hereditary or acquired, but also and especially because they react on the specific irritation (trahit sua quemque voluptas) according to their own ere-thic tendancies, by congestive or spasmodic excitement. ”

“ It is the entire biography of many asthmatics, allowing at one stage or other of their existence the detection of their tuberculosis, that has led me to teach for so long that asthmatic persons ought to be regarded as tuberculous or, at all events, as suffering from a larval form of bacil-leous localisation. ”

“ Concerning the false asthmatics, I should add that the medical men of this station are right in pointing out the persons in an advenced stage of Arterio-sclerosis who, notwithstanding all technical advice, present
themselves at Mont-Dore as asthmatics and are astonished at their being ordered to leave the place, the more so that at the beginning of the cure they experience in the inhalation rooms, certain temporary improvement, because in the luke-warm atmosphere of the vapours their peripheric circulation becom for a time easier. ”

“ As regards the intra thoracic respiratory organs, the anti-congestive, sedative and revulsive treatment of Mont-Dore is absolutely made for all neuro-arthritics subject to bronchitis, whose conghing is dry, painful, coming by fits, irritating, whose expectoration is difficult, beady or viscous — for all rheumatic or gouty people, subject to congestive tracheo-bronchitis, dry catarrh of the bronchiae, or congestion of the lungs, either erratic or recurrent. ”

“ It is not surprising, after all, — since we are speaking of waters of action solicited by medicine and of reaction produced by a patient — that it is our fellow members rather than the chemists who have shown us how and how many different therapeutic effects can be obtained from the springs of peculiar mineralisation and original composition. ”

“ From a practical point of view of therapeutic indications, our art adapts itself more (excepting perhaps for strong alcaline waters, sulphu-
rous waters, and those containing a large quantity of chloride of soda) to the results acquired in thermal polyclinics than to conjectures made from chemical analysis, By what indication, for instance, can 'i
we augur (taking only into consideration the mineralisation of Mont-Dore) , by what sign can we infer that the Mont-Dore treatment would perform wonders in curing respiratory troubles in arthritic patients? ”

“ The broncho-pulmonary sedation and decongestion are not only caused by the derivation obtained from the hip and foot baths, the absorbing of the medical waters and vapours and the pulmonary massage (which is obtained through the breathing done in the inhalation rooms) , but also by the mechanical, physiological, therapeutic properties in which the hydromineral medication is effected on the persons who breathe the air at a heighth of 3500 ft above the sea level. ”

“ However justified the interest taken in the contributions successively brought through Chemistry to the most intimate knowledge of the constituent elements of this medicinal lymphe may be, the mineralogical science only just begins to notice the intermolecular changes, the true organic mutations, which during their ascending course, interpret the vitality of thermal springs. Of the notation of the respective weights of the divers mineral principles found in thermal water, can one even to-day conclude on the existence and degree of its radio-activity ? ”

“ The Montdorian cure is unrivalled, because to the peculiar action of its organic hydro-mineral medicament — employed in all the living activity of its hyperthermal springs at the very outlets of the spouts themselves — it combines intimately the therapeutic effects with those of 3.446 ft of altitude. ”

“ If the tuberculosis does not manifest itself in the patients with the symptoms usual in the case of the classic embrys bacillosis, it is because the organic ground on which asthma generally manifests itself, partly explains the slow development of the tuberculosis. Matched in a neuro-arthritic temperament, the bacillosis attacks the convulsive dyspnoeic organs and for this reason certain neo-tuberculous arthritics are entered in the category of asthmatics. ”

“ The action of these inhalations is therefore not only decongestive and sedative, acting as a poultice on the skin; but it seems also to have locally, topically, a tonic, astringent, cicatrising ulterior effect, to judge from the benefit derived even by patients suffering from exulcerating affections of the respiratory organs, even in cases of open tuberculosis, provided that, on coming here, the patient, is not labouring under fever, provided that the specific affection is not, at this time, in a period of infectious activity. ”

“ Some poor sick people, he says, who were living in the neighbourhood of the springs were the first to profit by and to speak of their virtues. Their story was as simple as they themselves, and as true as the action of the remedy. ”

“ Let us take, for instance, a case of persisting tuberculosis with not actual pyretic reaction an old broncho-pneumonic focus, with a few cavernous lesions.
What the doctors at the Station observe, (and their experience on this point of view never varies) , is firstly the modifying of the cough which becomes looser and less frequent, the expectoration previously painful, thick and of a yellowish green, becomes at the same time easier, paler, more abundant and aerated. ”

“ One conceives that the medicinal atmosphere on penetrating to the bottom of the glandular anfractuosities and of the alveoles, on renovating in each inspiration the deposit of metallic particles in the neighbourhood of the lymphatic lakes— that direct the cellular osmotic changes — modifies in them the molecular exchanges, urges on their elementary functions and stimulates their vitality. ”

“ It has been shown why public singers, orators, preachers, professors, lawyers, etc., etc., — in short all those whose professional fatigue, added in most cases to the effects of their arthritic diathesis, has produced catarrh of the first respiratory tubes — flock from day to day in greater numbers to Mont-Dore. ”

“ I consider that the patient suffering from the asthma known as essential is subject to attacks of respiratory spasms, because he is affected by a thoracic bacillecus thorn which determines the localisation of the neurosis in the same way as does the nasal lesion so frequently incriminated. ”

“ It is not because it is endowed with chemical properties actings peci-fically or as antidotes, but because it is detersive, derivative, and anti-congestive, that the treatment creates circumstances less favourable to parasitic invasions; it is also because its topical action is scarring and at the same time has a power of resolvent, that it permits of regulating to some extent the procedure of curative sclerosis, and that it is the treatment for quite a variety of confirmed sufferers from tuberculosis, those even in whom the disease already begins to develope into phthisis. ”

“ The water, which is thus drunk in a living state, immediately on leaving the spouts presenting itself with the full activity of its molecular mutations, with all its organic mobility, its chemical, magnetic electric or radio-active powers that make of it a real medicinal lymph, flows into the glass transparent and clear or down through the tubes for bottleing. ”

“ These thermal, preventive, redemptive cures, real instruments of pueri-culture necessary to avoid or correct opportunely, the defective functional creases that print themselves so easily and so deeply during the whole period of the growth of children, must be placed to the vangnard of therapeutic hygiene. ”

“ He must not send to Mont-Dore either his hepatopathic, nor his nephro-pathic patients, for neither the treatment nor the climate would suit them, Neither must he send — excepting in cases of tracheo-bronchial adenopathy — any patient whose respiratory troubles might be imputable to a tumour on the thoracic or cervical organs, nor any one suffering from neo-plasy, wherever it may be localised. ”

“ With regard to the gases given out spontaneously by the springs, according to the analysis made by Parmentier, 100 volumes contain 99.50 of Carbonic Acid, 0,49 of Nitrogen, 0.01 of Argon and no traces of Oxigen.
On evaporating in vacuum distilled water into which these gases have been mixed, together with the sulphuric acid, we obtain a weak saline residuum formed chiefly of silica, bromures and chlorides. ”

“ They provoke on the patient at first, a slight vascular spasm, his pulse then becomes hard and frequent, then after the manner of artificial exanthema, an intense rubifaction appears over the whole of the parts emerged and immediately after, follows the perspiration of the upper part of the body. ”

“ At Mont-Dore, I was saying, the patients, while walking about in the large inhalation rooms brea the in the vapours that, descending to the very corners of the cells, fill up and impregnate every anfrac-ture of the respiratory organs, from the meatus of the nasal cavities, from the sinus even, to the pulmonary infundibula. ”