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Dr. Walter Stuart McClellan, 40, pipe-sucking, meticulous, pompadoured blond, is the medical director of the Spa. He and two assistants try not to diagnose or prescribe. Patients must go to Saratoga Spa under their own doctor's instructions. Heart cases are preferred, for the bathing system Dr. Baruch initiated at Saratoga does most good for cardiac conditions. The patient gets into a tub of carbonated water somewhat cooler than body temperature. An attendant puts an inflated rubber pillow under the patient's head. The patient relaxes for 20 minutes and usually falls asleep as the prickle of gas bubbles against his skin relaxes his capillaries. Relaxed capillaries fill with blood, relieve the arteries and heart of their overload. Dr. McClellan, following Dr. Baruch, says the bathing treatment is risky in cases of severely damaged heart, advanced syphilitic heart disease, cardiac asthma or where fever is present. It is "extremely effective in myocarditis, coronary disease, general arteriosclerosis, variations from normal blood pressure, nervous heart."
For the sake of heart patients, who tire easily, promenades and the golf course at Saratoga Spa are on level ground. Benches abound. For transportation around the Spa's 1,200 acres there are ten jinrikishas lugged this summer by stalwart Dartmouth and Rutgers students. One of the Rutgers luggers, sinewy George Gordon, last week gave Mrs. Lehman a ride.
Not all doctors are as enthusiastic as Dr. McClellan about the curative effects of Saratoga waters. Skeptics believe the value of Saratoga and other health resorts is chiefly psychological. Customers who take the "cure" eat, digest, eliminate, bathe and sleep regularly for three weeks. That period usually is the only part of the year when they make any attempt to live systematically. That they "feel fine" may be more the result of sensible living than of the waters of Saratoga.
*Other top ranking U. S. health resorts: White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. (digestive ailments, heart and skin diseases); Hot Springs, Va. (digestive ailments, heart diseases); Hot Springs, Ark. (digestive and rheumatic ailments, heart diseases); Bedford Springs, Pa. (digestive ailments, gout); French Lick, Ind. (gout, obesity, digestive and kidney ailments, heart diseases); West Baden, Ind. (stomach, intestinal, liver, kidney ailments); Manitou Springs, Colo. (gastric ulcers); Clifton Springs, N. Y. (digestive ailments, heart and skin diseases).