Note 406 — LLANSTEPHAN CASTLE, Carmarthenshire.

Nevertheless, the old maxim of ἀριστον μεν ὐδωρ has lost nothing of its truth as a medicinal agent in the treatment of human maladies. The superstitious belief that once carried the invalid to drink, “nothing doubting,” of some distant well, necessitated, in many instances, a total change of scenes and habits, which could hardly fail to prove beneficial in many cases, in which the comforts of home and the established rules of treatment had been found quite ineffectual. The cures ascribed to hydropathy in our own time are, in many cases, not a whit less wonderful than those ascribed by monkish legends to the holy wells of England and Wales. The only difference is, that while tradition affirms that new limbs were known to sprout out [as in the claw of a lobster] by the plentiful use of certain waters, hydropathics restrict themselves to the reproduction of lungs only; so that the modern wells have rather an advantage over the ancient in the art of miracle-working.