incloud in the rest time!!

Dr. Burke, a one-time owner and resident physician at Red Sulphur Springs, remarks on the usefulness of the various mineral waters in certain diseases as well as contra-indications to their use. The springs range from those that are well known today such as the White Sulphur Springs, currently the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, to the Blue Sulphur Springs, once able to accommodate several hundred people and now represented by a lone Greek Revival pavilion in the middle of a field near Smoot, West Virginia. Selected information from Burke’s book is enhanced by dozens of images and transcriptions of nineteenth-century letters and documents from the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library. These reflect the experiences of visitors to the springs. For example, one writer finds his health “greatly improved” while another describes himself as “much weaker & more reduced than I ever was before.” Assessments of the various establishments and clientele vary from an “exceedingly pleasant place” with “many pleasant acquaintances” to “dull and uninteresting” and “that sink hole of extravagance, gambling & vice for many young & unmarried men.”