Mineral Waters
‘A mineral Water is that which has its passage underground, through the Veins of one or more, of crude, and sometimes digested Minerals or Metals, by which through the assistance of that acid ferment which it carries along with it, it is first insinuated into, and then impregnated with some proportion of their Salt, Sulphur, or Mercury in which three, all the qualities and virtues of every mix do reside. But above all they are tinged and imbued with the most fix of these three substances (yet of a dissoluble nature) namely the Salt, in which is contained, according to the opinion of the learned, the most essential qualities of every compound’.[1]
Edward Jorden, A discourse of natural bathes and mineral waters … (London, 1669), Table of minerals.
The above quotation, from Edward Worth’s copy of Pierre Bellon’s The Irish Spaw … (Dublin, 1684), reflects not only Bellon’s adherence to a ‘Paracelsian’ view of the importance of the Tria Prima of salt, sulphur and mercury in medicine, but also one of the main themes of early modern interpretations of mineral waters: the chemical exploration of their contents.[2] This is a theme which is evident in Worth’s extensive range of texts dealing with the medicinal use of mineral water. Worth (1676–1733) was clearly fascinated by mineral waters for he not only collected works about local sites such as Chapelizod in Dublin and Ballyspellan in Co. Kilkenny, but he also purchased books and pamphlets by Italian, German, French and English authors, each investigating the qualities of the mineral waters emanating from their local spas.
As Coley has noted, interest in mineral waters and the potential health benefits of both drinking and bathing at spas revived in England in the later sixteenth century.[3] The early seventeenth century witnessed the publication of works such as Tobias Venner’s Via recta ad vitam longam, or a plaine philosophical discourse of the nature … and effects of all such things, as by way of nourishments and diatecticall observations make for the preservation of health … (London, 1620). Venner’s text was a popular work, going through several editions. Worth purchased the 1628 edition, which included Venner’s treatise on The baths of Bathe … (London, 1628), which, as Kelly notes, was the most popular English destination for Irish patients searching for mineral waters abroad.[4] Three years later another important text, this time more specifically devoted to the nature and medicinal properties of mineral water, appeared: Edward Jorden’s A discourse of natural bathes and mineral waters … (London, 1631).
As the title suggests, Jorden’s was a wide-ranging work, not solely devoted to advocating the benefits of any particular spa (unlike many of the French texts explored in our Spas webpage), although he included a section on Bath, where he was practising as a physician. Jorden provided his readers with a useful classification of minerals, one which was included in Thomas Guidott’s 1669 edition which Worth owned. As Coley notes, Jorden’s book ‘became a standard for many later seventeenth-century physicians who followed his lead’.[5] Jorden (d. 1632), like Bellon, was an adherent of iatrochemistry, the use of chemical compounds in medicine, which had been so vociferously advocated by the controversial Swiss physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), more commonly known as Paracelsus, in the sixteenth century, and by Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), in the seventeenth century.
The Helmontian emphasis on the role of fermentation in digestion inevitably led to the exploration of the physical properties of mineral waters. Jorden certainly followed Helmontian interpretations – Coley points to his suggestion that mineral waters originated in the sea as but one such instance.[6] However, Jorden did not slavishly follow Helmontian norms – he was keen to push experimental boundaries and advocated a close examination of crystals in dissolved minerals.[7] He also differed from them (and Bellon), in explaining the medical effect of mineral waters in more traditional terms.
The seventeenth century witnessed a plethora of works dedicated to the chemical examination of mineral waters and Worth possessed many of them. Perhaps his best known text was Robert Boyle’s Short memoirs for the natural experimental history of mineral waters (London, 1685), a seminal exploration of the subject, but Boyle was not the only fellow of the Royal Society to publish a chemical examination of mineral waters. Worth also collected Nehemiah Grew’s Tractatus de salis cathartici amari in aquis Ebeshamensibus, et hujusmodi aliis contenti natura & usu (London, 1695), which explored the mineral waters at Epsom, and their famous Epsom salts.
Equally, Worth did not restrict himself to the outpourings of the Royal Society (of which he was a fellow). He would have been well aware that the members of its French counterpart, the Académie des Sciences, were likewise obsessed by the investigation of mineral waters. As Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) declared in 1713:
‘One of the first projects of the nascent Academy was to examine, in Paris, the kingdom’s principal mineral waters. Duclos obtained most of them, and published a treatise on the topic. These waters are medical potions that emerge fully prepared from the depths of the earth, and although their virtues were first discovered by experience, it would be very advantageous to know them by reason as well, whether this is to make surer use of them, or to extend them to new ailments, or even to imitate by art these remedies given to us by nature, and thereby preserve the ill from long, painful and often dangerous voyages. With these goals in mind we have studied with great care the minerals that enter into the composition of these waters, and the proportions of these components’.[8]
Leading the charge were two academicians, Samuel Duclos (d. 1715), and Claude Bourdelin (d. 1699), who, between them, analyzed a large range of mineral waters in the late 1660s and early 1670s: Worth owned a copy of their findings, Duclos’ Observations sur les eaux minerales de plusieurs provinces de France: faites en l’Academie Royale des Sciences en l’année 1670 & 1671 (Paris, 1675). As Bycroft notes, the comprehensive nature of this work might not have been replicated in succeeding decades but Duclos and Bourdelin had set down the parameters for the study of mineral waters.[9] To these were added texts by Moyse Charas (1619–98), Nicolas Lémery (1645–1715), and Charles Dufay – the first two authors were certainly collected by Worth, who tended to prefer texts by licensed physicians rather than apothecaries such as Claude Bourdelin and Gilles-François Boulduc (1675–1741).
Robert Wittie, Scarbrough Spaw, or, A description of the nature and vertues of the spaw at Scarbrough in Yorkshire. Also a treatise of the nature and use of water in general, and the several sorts thereof, as sea, rain, snow, pond, lake, spring, and river water, with the original causes and qualities. Where more largely the controversie among learned writers about the original of springs, is discussed. To which is added, a short discourse concerning mineral waters, especially that of the spaw (London, 1660), title page.
As might be expected, the first to espouse the chymical investigation of mineral waters were the followers of Paracelsus and, in the seventeenth century, Van Helmont. Conflict between Helmontians and more traditionally-minded physicians continued to overshadow interpretations of the benefits of mineral waters in the mid to later seventeenth century and one of the most celebrated debates concerned the famous spa at Scarborough in north Yorkshire.[10] The debate was between two physicians of the town, Robert Wittie (bap. 1613, d. 1684), and William Simpson. The above work by Wittie was the first of his treatises promoting Scarborough spa and seven years later he brought out a larger second edition of the text. In both he drew attention to five ‘principles’ in the water at Scarborough: nitre, alum, vitriol, iron and salt, and these he described as having four qualities: ‘hot, biting, styptic and ‘astrictive’.[11] While he was clearly influenced by Jorden’s work he disagreed with Jorden (and the Helmontians), concerning the source of mineral waters.
William Simpson, Hydrologia chymica: or, The chymical anatomy of the Scarbrough, and other spaws in York-Shire. Wherein are interspersed, some animadversions upon Dr. Wittie’s lately published treatise of the Scarbrough-spaw. Also, a short description of the spaws at Malton and Knarsbrough. And a discourse concerning the original of hot springs and other fountains: with the causes and cures of most of the stubbornest diseases (either chronical or acute) incident to the body of man. Also, a vindication of chymical physick; where a probable way is propounded for the improvement of experimental philosophy: with a digression concerning an universal character. Likewise a short account of the principles of all concretes, whether vegetable, animal or mineral. Lastly, is subjoyned an appendix of the original of springs; with the author’s quoternary of medicines: and the epilogue to the whole, of the essence of the Scarbrough-spaw. By W. Simpson, Philo-Chymico-Medicus (London, 1669), figures I and II.
Soon an avid Helmontian, a young doctor named William Simpson, was challenging Wittie’s pre-eminence at York (and Scarborough). The lengthy title of Simpson’s book sets out exactly where the author was coming from. Above all, the work was presented as ‘a vindication of chymical physick’. While it did not limit itself solely to Scarborough, it was in the discussion of that spa where the true nature of the disagreement between the established physician Wittie, and the up-and-coming physician Simpson, became clear for Simpson disagreed with Wittie on a range of issues, including the nature and number of his five principles, and the source of mineral water. The debate became the talk of the coffee houses (indeed the debates sometimes took place there). Simpson challenged Wittie to an experimental duel at the Scarborough spring itself. Here both men performed a number of tests: they tasted the water, and used a range of chemical tests.
As Coley notes, this was, therefore, not a straightforward dispute between a ‘Galenist’ and an experimental Chymist for the more traditional Wittie showed himself to be as open to chemical testing as his younger counterpart.[12] Indeed, Wittie openly declared that he ‘would not be thought as if I were an Enemy to the Chymical Way, or those that are Learned Professors Thereof … I account it a singular Additament and Ornament to the Noble Art of Physick and the most useful Part of Experimental Philosophy’.[13] As a 1669 review of the debate in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions makes clear, the two debaters actually had more in common than their public disagreement suggested. The reviewer concluded that ‘whether in the Matter, which concerns these Mineral Ingredients … or in that which respects the two ways of practising Physick, the Galenical and the Chymical, is indeed not so great as the heat of Contention seems to make it’.[14] By 1680 the two debaters had made their peace, both now established physicians and proponents of the health benefits of Scarborough spa. Perhaps the Scarborough debate tells us less about intellectual disputes between ‘Galenists’ and ‘Helmontians’ and more about professional rivalries and the often symbiotic relationship between development of individual spas and the career of the physician promoting them – a topic which is evident also in the rise of spas as bathing resorts.
Pierre Bellon, The Irish spaw, being a short discourse on mineral waters in general: with a way of improving by art weakly impregnated mineral waters: and a brief account of the mineral waters at Chappel-izod near Dublin … (Dublin, 1684), title page.
Worth not only collected texts on popular English spa resorts such as Bath and Scarborough, he also bought pamphlets about spas much closer to home. As we have seen, he possessed Bellon’s 1684 tract on Chapelizod, which had put the Dublin spa on the map of later seventeenth-century Irish drinkers of mineral water. The treatise was, as Kelly notes, ‘the first significant Irish printed work on spas’ and it very much followed the example of contemporary tracts emanating from Britain and France extolling the virtues of spas such as Scarborough and Bourbon-l’Archambault respectively – destinations in which Worth was likewise interested.[15] Bellon’s treatise was very much a product of the 1680s in Ireland – a decade which witnessed the foundation of the Dublin Philosophical Society, a sister society of the Royal Society, and one which displayed a pronounced interest in mineral waters.[16]
Bellon argued that ‘all Diseases proceed at first from a deviation of the Functions of the Stomach’ and hence mineral waters could play a vital role in medication.[17] He provided his ‘learned’ audience with a disquisition about the quantity, quality, time and place (in short how much, what type, when and where minerals waters should be imbibed).[18] As his title page declared, his aim was to provide instructions on ‘taking mineral waters, either strong or weak, by themselves, or with additions’.[19] Bellon’s cautious differentiation between ‘strong or weak’ was the result of his many tests on the water, for he assured his readers that he had undertaken ‘a Chymical examination of those Metals & Minerals, from whence it derived its Virtues’ by examination of the ‘Soil, Situation, distance from fresh and salt Waters, its Sediment in the Spring, the most proximate Hills … the Water itself, its Colour, Odour, Tast, Brightness, Weight, and Softness’.[20] After consultation and ‘divers tryals and examinations’ he had come to the conclusion that while the Chapelizod spring held beneficial water ‘it would require some Stimulator, to add more virtue unto its weakness’.[21] He argued that this was due to the problems posed by Chapelizod’s position: ‘I say in the first place that as it is now situated, it is impossible to preserve it long in its puris naturalibus, and without some mixtures of common Waters by all the means imaginable’.[22] However all hope was not lost for Bellon proclaimed that it was possible to produce just such a ‘Stimulator’ and, needless to say, he was willing to provide it for a fee.[23]
The idea of not necessarily drinking mineral water at source would not have been considered unduly unusual in Worth’s period. James Kelly draws attention to the lucrative trade in bottled water in early modern Dublin, not only from England but also continental Europe and states that ‘by the 1730s it was possible, not only to obtain Bristol and Bath waters in Dublin, but also to purchase Pyrmont-Water from France and ‘German Spa-Water’ from Will Lydon, a merchant based on Lower Ormond Quay’.[24] However, despite Bellon’s pleas (indeed possibly because of them), Chapelizod spa, which had its heyday in the 1680s to the first decade of the eighteenth century, began to lose out to newer, up and coming spas (of which they were many). Not all were convinced by Bellon’s assurances that he could replicate the real thing and, given the numerous nature of mineral waters, there was no good reason to stick with a ‘weak’ old spring when newer springs were coming to the fore.
John Taafe, The Irish Spaw, or Ballispallan Water (Dublin, 1724), title page.
Undoubtedly one of the most important of these new spas was that of Ballyspellan, in Co. Kilkenny, which was the subject of promotional literature in the mid-1720s when not one but two tracts appeared, extolling the benefit of drinking its mineral waters. Worth owned two copies of a short tract by John Taafe, the title page of which is above. This tract was joined in the following year, 1725, by a slightly more extensive pamphlet: John Burges’ An essay on the waters and air of Ballispellan: With their various properties and uses, join’d with rules of conduct for the rich and poor in drinking the waters, and the proper exercises necessary there (Dublin, 1725). This latter pamphlet was dedicated to the ‘ladies and gentlemen who resort to the waters of Ballispellan’, which indicates that already by 1725 the spa had developed into a resort considered worthy enough to attract a well-to-do clientele. Ballyspellan, located a few miles from Kilkenny city, was a chalybeate spring (i.e. its mineral waters contained iron salts). As Kelly notes, the spa not only benefited from Burgess’ endorsement: it gained even greater fame when it became the subject of a poetical exchange between Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), and Thomas Sheridan (1687–1738), in 1728.[25] This, coupled with the range of diseases which it was said to cure, not to mention the addition of facilities for guests and entertainments to ensure they enjoyed their stay, led to Ballyspellan becoming one of the most popular spas in Ireland by the 1750s. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had witnessed the rise of spas throughout Europe, places where patients came to not only imbibe the waters but also to bathe in them. How these resorts functioned is explored in our ‘Spas’ webpage.
Text: Dr Elizabethanne Boran, Librarian of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin.
Sources
Bellon, Pierre, The Irish spaw, being a short discourse on mineral waters in general: with a way of improving by art weakly impregnated mineral waters: and a brief account of the mineral waters at Chappel-izod near Dublin … (Dublin, 1684).
Bickford, J.A.R., and M.E. Bickford, ‘Wittie [Witty], Robert (bap. 1613, d. 1684), physician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
Brockliss, L.W.B., ‘The development of the spa in seventeenth-century France’, Medical History, Supplement No. 10 (1990), 23–47.
Bycroft, Michael, ‘Iatrochemisty and the Evaluation of Mineral Waters in France, 1600-1750’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 91, no. 2 (2017), 303–30.
Elmer, Peter, ‘Promoting medical change in Restoration Ireland: the chemical revolution and the patronage of James Butler, duke of Ormond (1610–88)’, in Cunningham, John (ed.), Early Modern Ireland and the world of medicine: Practitioners, collectors and contexts (Manchester, 2019), pp 84–101.
Coley, Noel G., ‘“Cures without Care” “Chymical Physicians” and mineral waters in seventeenth-century English Medicine’, Medical History, 23 (1979), 191–214.
Cunningham, John (ed.), Early Modern Ireland and the world of medicine: Practitioners, collectors and contexts (Manchester, 2019).
Gentilcore, David, ‘In praise of the ordinary: shifting knowledge and practice in the medical use of drinking water in Italy, 1550–1750’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 97, no. 4 (2023), 531–559.
Hoppen, K. Theodore (ed.), Papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society, 1683-1709, 2 vols (Dublin, 2008).
Kelly, James, ‘‘Drinking the waters’: Balneotherapeutic medicine in Ireland, 1660-1850’, Studia Hibernica, 35 (2008-2009), 99–146.
Willard, Thomas, ‘Testing the Waters: Early Modern Studies’, in Albrecht Classen (ed.), Bodily and spiritual hygiene in medieval and early modern literature: explorations of textual presentations of filth and water (Berlin and Boston, 2017), pp 568–98.
Wittie, Robert, Pyrologia mimica or an answer to hydrologia chymica … in defence of Scarborough Spaw … (London, 1669).
[1] Bellon, Pierre, The Irish Spaw … (Dublin, 1684), pp 13–4.
[2] On Bellon as an adherent of Paracelsus see Elmer, Peter, ‘Promoting medical change in Restoration Ireland: the chemical revolution and the patronage of James Butler, duke of Ormond (1610–88)’, in Cunningham, John (ed.), Early Modern Ireland and the world of medicine: Practitioners, collectors and contexts (Manchester, 2019), p. 93.
[3] Coley, Noel G., ‘“Cures without Care” “Chymical Physicians” and mineral waters in seventeenth-century English Medicine’, Medical History, 23 (1979), 191.
[4] Kelly, James, ‘‘Drinking the waters’: Balneotherapeutic medicine in Ireland, 1660-1850’, Studia Hibernica, 35 (2008-2009), 112.
[5] Coley, ‘Cures without Care’, 192.
[6] Ibid., 195.
[7] Ibid., 198.
[8] Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, ‘Sur plusieurs eaux minerales de France’, Hist. Acad. Roy. Sci., 1713 (1739), 57 ; quoted in Bycroft, Michael, ‘Iatrochemisty and the Evaluation of Mineral Waters in France, 1600-1750’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 91, no. 2 (2017), 318.
[9] Ibid., 319.
[10] On the Scarborough debate see Coley, Noel G., ‘“Cures without Care” “Chymical Physicians” and mineral waters in seventeenth-century English Medicine’, Medical History, 23 (1979), 191–214.
[11] Ibid., 201.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Wittie, Robert, Pyrologia mimica or an answer to hydrologia chymica … in defence of Scarborough Spaw … (London, 1669), preface to the reader. (Worth did not collect this work).
[14] ‘An account of two books – I. Discours de M. Stenon sur l´anatomie du cerveau. A Paris 1669. in 12. – II. The former accompt of Dr Witties answer to hydrologia chymica enlarged: where the sanative virtue of the Scarborough Spaw is asserted from long term experience; and on that occasion the healing performances of many other waters, both in England and elsewhere, discoursed of; together with their particular cures, ingredients, mixtures, and the wayes of analysing them’, Phil. Trans. R. Soc., 4 (1669), 1034–1040.
[15] Kelly, ‘Drinking the waters’, 106.
[16] Hoppen, K. Theodore (ed.), Papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society, 1683-1709, 2 vols (Dublin, 2008), nos. 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 144, 145, 255 and 285.
[17] Bellon, The Irish Spaw, p. 38.
[18] Ibid., p. 63.
[19] Ibid., title page.
[20] Ibid., pp 2–3.
[21] Ibid., pp 3, 5–6.
[22] Ibid., p. 50.
[23] Ibid., p. 67.
[24] Kelly, ‘Drinking the waters’, 108.
[25] Ibid., 116.