Entrepreneurial Ventures in Chemistry by Peter Reed

Author:Peter Reed [Reed, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472449788
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2015-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Spa Waters and Hydrotherapy

Bathing had been popular since Roman times as the baths at Bath and Buxton show, and the discovery of mineral springs throughout Britain by the seventeenth century led to the transformation of towns such as Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Although in earlier times these springs were associated with religious ceremonies, by the seventeenth century the medical profession was showing great interest in their therapeutic value. Certain spa waters were attributed therapeutic benefits in treating particular diseases such as consumption, constipation, dropsy, gout and rheumatism. The spa waters could be administered (or taken) in two ways: by immersing the body in the water (hydrotherapy) or by drinking the waters in copious amounts. Physicians had also recognized the natural brine of the sea as a therapeutic agent that together with the ozone in the air transformed towns like Brighton and Scarborough into seaside resorts.47 The tradition of the spas was aristocratic, attracting the wealthy to ‘take the waters’ while also enjoying the social and cultural opportunities provided by entertainments, amenities, walking and good quality air. The sea resorts proved popular with the less well-off who relied on the expanding railways network in the second half of the nineteenth century to escape from the poor environments of the large towns and benefit from the bracing sea breezes of the coastal resorts.48

Advances in chemical analysis through the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century under the influence of Torbern Bergman (1735–1784) and Richard Kirwan (1733–1812) identified with greater precision the constituents in the water.49 This added legitimacy to the spa waters and enabled physicians to promote particular spa waters for their chemical characteristics rather than their medical benefits.50 By the 1850s sufficient information on chemical content was available to warrant a classification of spa waters. There were four broad classes:

1. Chalybeate: Waters with the active ingredient of iron, possessing a styptic taste. Examples include Harrogate and Tunbridge Wells.

2. Sulphurous: Waters with the active ingredient of sulphide of hydrogen (in a free or combined state), with characteristic smell of bad eggs. Examples include Harrogate and Baden-Baden (Germany).

3. Carbonated: Waters with the active ingredient of carbonic acid, with characteristic sparkling taste. Example includes Clifton Wells.

4. Saline: Waters with the active ingredient of sodium chloride (brine), sodium sulphate (Glauber’s salt), magnesium sulphate (Epsom salt) or calcium carbonate or sulphate (calcareous). Examples include St Ann’s Well (Malvern), Leamington, Epsom and Buxton respectively.

The discovery of a new spa water, a water containing a particular chemical or a new chemical constituent of a spa water would enhance a town’s reputation and add to the existing intense competition between towns. The analytical chemists making these discoveries were much revered and honoured, as Sheridan discovered.

Sheridan published 15 papers on spa and mineral waters, together with two letters in Chemical News giving detailed analyses carried out on waters at Harrogate and Buxton.51 In 1850, soon after the foundation of the Liverpool College of Chemistry, Sheridan published his first paper on water analysis. The water under investigation was from a reservoir

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