Of the four principal warm waters naturally produced in England this is the least so. As the Bath waters are proper where the secretions are defective, so the Bristol water is of service where they exceed the requirements of health. The Bath water warms; the Bristol cools. Bath water helps the stomach, intestines, and nerves; the Bristol favours the lungs, kidneys, and bladder. Except a jaundice attend, the Bristol water may be of use in dropsies by its drying and diuretic qualities. Dr Wynter affirms, that there is no iron in the Bristol water; and that its mineral contents are chalk, lapis calcarius, and calaminaria. Five gallons of this water, after evaporation, afforded only 3 iii. and gr. ii. of a mineral-like substance. The diseases in which this water is useful are internal hemorrhages, immediate menes, internal inflammations, spitting blood, dysentery, purulent ulcers of the visceræ, consumption, dropsy, fever with heat, stone, gravel, strangury, habitual gout, atrophy, a slow fever, teraphobia, gleets, and a diabetes, in which last it is a specific, and may be drank as freely as the thirst requires it. The hotter months are the best for using it. The Bristol and Matlock waters are of exactly the same qualities.

Doctors Mead and Lane first established the reputation of Bristol waters in diseases of the kidneys and bladder.