The evolution of artificial mineral waters / by William Kirkby.
- Kirkby, William
- Date:
- 1902
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The evolution of artificial mineral waters / by William Kirkby. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![In the year 1770, being attacked by a severe haemorrhoidal colic, I was obliged to take above eighty bottles of foreign medicated waters. By these the symptoms, which were attended with excruciating pain, were somewhat mitigated ; in the meantime, I examined the nature and principles of these waters with the greatest attention, as I most earnestly wished to imitate them perfectly ; for besides their extreme deamess in this country, the beginning of spring, when not only diseases, the foundations of which have been laid during the severity of the winter, prevail very much, but my complaints are also particularly troublesome, these waters cannot be had fresh and good at any price. I soon reaped the wished-for fruit of my labours, for in the year following I substituted the artificial to the natui^al waters, and not only used them myself with signal advantage, but gave them to many of my friends with like success. All that time I used the method above described for impregnating water with fixed air [see page 67] ; but in the year 1773, I learned Dr. Priestley's method, which, with a little alteration, I have since continued to practice. The same year, in a short Treatise on the Aerial Acid, which the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Stockholm, inserted in their Acts, I mentioned in a cursory way that I had for some time prepared for myself and some of my friends artificial medicated waters entirely resembling the natural waters, both in flavour and virtue. The celebrated Baer, who then lived in Paris, took the opportunity of writing to my friend, Mr. Wargentin, requesting me to describe the method I pursued. This I complied with by sending a Treatise on that subject to the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Stockholm, in 1774, which they inserted in their Acts for the following year. The fundamental character of Bergman's work is attested by the fact that it became the basis of succeeding research upon the imitation of natural mineral waters. As chemical knowledge has advanced, the number of constituents found in the waters has gradually increased, and the quantities have been determined with greater precision, but the main facts set forth by him have not been shaken.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23983267_0050.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
