Colour which it receives from a competency of this Vitriolick Salt of Iron is an infallible sign of a Water apt to yield a good proportion of that essential Salt and consequently very medicinal Moreover that Water which is rough to the Palate which at the first relish discovers some acid that terminates into a kind of an austere Bitterness of a bituminous Odour that dyes the Excrements black and sometimes the Urines of a greenish Colour of an easie digestion quick conveyance through the smallest vessels though taken in a small quantity is to be preferred But a Mineral Water so qualified in all respects is not to be found in all places in this our age whither through that general decay of Nature which in the opinion of some is very remarkable I shall not now insist upon but thus much I here assert that for want of such Waters the sick are frequently obliged to make use of such as are less impregnated which being not powerful to cure and eradicate formed Diseases yet are generally known and used with some success in the removing of recent Obstructions and in preparing the Body for the reception of specifick Medicines ordained by skilful Physicians according to the nature of the Diseases Which Waters might also be happily us'd in confirmed Diseases were they not to be taken then in such large quantities for want of sufficient Impregnation to make them pass by the pressure of their own weight from which there frequently follows an unusual extension of the Tunicles of the Stomach and an extinction of its natural heat from which two accidents do commonly proceed Hysterical Passions Convulsions Cramps Palsies Apoplexies and the like and sometimes immediate Suffocations which Inconveniences by taking too large quantities of weakly impregnated Waters I shall further insist upon from these four particulars Quantity Quality Time and Place First as to Quantity A Gallon of Water is the usual height to attain unto any benefit by them though sometimes six Quarts nay two Gallons have been devoured which Quantities are usually taken within the space of an hour or two at the most the half of this vast quantity to be contained at once sometimes in a Stomach which has been debilitated either by the violence or duration of the morbifick matter the tedious persistance in a fruitless course of Physick or both disenabled from digesting and distributing a small proportion of a good Nutriment much more incapable of dealing with such a large quantity of a crude Liquor so that it frequently happens that the Waters remain in the Stomach not passing at every fourth or fifth Glass as might be expected and consequently not to be voyded again but by Vomit except as I have already said they be pressed down by their own burden a very dangerous thing to trust to For when they chance to go off so on a suddain it is with such an impetuous course that the weight and quantity meeting with some obstructions in the smaller vessels and passages thereby are caused great Inflamations in the Meseraick Veins Kidnies Uriteries Bladder c. with so great a dilatation of the Vessels to force it self out that Swounding Fits Cold Sweats and sometimes without a singular suppliment of Nature sudden Death has followed notwithstanding the use of common Salt carminative Seeds mixtures of other Liquors with the Waters taking of them in Bed laying of warm Clothes and Down Pillows over their Stomachs the use of Cream of Tartar the heating of the Waters and the like which last renders them less powerful by the loss of their most subtle parts which are thereby evaporated the Waters remaining more crude and indigestible then before Secondly if the Quantity is so nocent well may the Quality To have at once in a weakned Stomach the forementioned quantity of Water in which the virtual substance doth not exceed the weight of six or eight grains all the rest being of a cold raw and undigestible nature must needs be a wrack to our Nature who is contented with a little Thirdly the Sick are limited to such particular seasons of the year wherein as the Proverb says they must make Hey while the Sun shines and frequently in the midst of their course are impeded by some great fall of Rain which mixing with the already too crude Waters does instantly extinguish that small portion of Virtue which they had and so are deprived for that time from all kind of Operation by which accident the poor Patient is wholly disappointed of his hopes and abandoned to the cruel tyranny of a conquering and merciless enemy Lastly And here I must except these Waters near so great a place of all manner of Accommodation as is this City of Dublin as well as others so advantagiously situated I say that there are no persons who have seen the great Inconveniencies which attend most of the places of drinking the Mineral Waters but are already convinced of the great want of better Accommodations I mean in reference to the poor weak languishing sick Creatures which Inconveniencies most chiefly happen by the great concourse of people where there is such a scarcity of Conveniencies For sick persons being at the best fitted not as their nice and peevish Humours would require but as well as they can though when in their own habitations being transported to those cold and bleek places in danger of having added to their other Distempers Colds Coughs Agues in a word exposed to all the injuries of a piercing Air besides the stirring up of Humours raising of Vapours there confined into some scanted Cottage streightned of such necessary Refreshments as are requisite for them must of necessity prove if well examined more prejudicial in general then those Mineral Waters can do good I speak not of such whose plentiful Fortunes can render all places alike commodious to them but of the generality Thus much as to Mineral Waters in general and the many Inconveniencies which attend the taking of weak impregnated Waters Now if such accidents do usually attend the use of weakly impregnated Waters is it not a charitable act to endeavour the removing of all these forementioned impediments It is well known that this has been already done in England and elsewhere and no question but that it may be also performed in this Kingdom in supplying the Weakness of these Waters by joining unto a small proportion of them the essential Salt extracted out of others more strongly impregnated Waters of the same nature operation with these Whereby they will be rendred more powerful in their Operations enabled to carry themselves through all Obstructions and that not by the violence of their own weight but by gently insinuating themselves and by their penetrating qualities piercing through the most remote opilated and obstructed parts of the Body This I humbly offer for the publick Good of this Nation unto which I have been lately called until I find some opportunity of being more serviceable Namely an essential Vitriolick Salt
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 With Directions for the Taking of Mineral Waters either strong weak by themselves or with Additions By P. Bellon Dr. in Physick Dublin Printed by J. R. for M. Gunne at the Bible and Crown in Castle-street and Nat. Tarrant at the King's Arms in Corn-Market 1684. TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE JAMES Duke of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant OF IRELAND May it please Your Grace SPrings tend not more naturally unto their center then this Discourse to Your Grace through whose courteous Invitation I have left my native Soil to end the remainder of my days in the Service of my most Gracious King in this his Kingdom under Your Graces Favour and Protection This Nation my Lord which is so sensible in its whole and in each individual parts of those vast and innumerable Benefits and Advantages which it has receiv'd from the benign'd influences of your Graces wise prudent and most politick Government that in a due sense of Gratitude sends up its daily Prayers to Heaven for Your Graces Preservation That I might not remain useless during my stay in this City till Your Grace were pleas'd to appoint me a fix station where I might be most serviceable in my capacity I thought it convenient to employ my hours of leisure in some particular which might tend to a general good The Crudities of the River Waters in these parts might have been a proper Theme to insist upon but it requiring peradventure a further Scrutiny then the spare time which I may enjoy here would permit me to enter upon I diverted my thoughts on a Spring of Mineral Waters at a small distance from this place the Subject of this Discourse Be pleased my Lord to protect these few Sheets under Your Graces Favour together with their Subject the Spring by encouraging the search after some other Head so much elevated above this as may place it beyond the encroachment of common Waters on its Prerogatives that amongst all the wonderful goods and advantages which this Nation has receiv'd at Your Graces Hands there may be added Your Graces miraculous production of a Spring of Health from the midst of insalubrious Waters If in this first attempt I am so happy as to please Your Grace I have my end which shall never presume beyond the bounds of being May it please Your Grace Your Grace's Most obliged most humble most obedient Servant P. Bellon THE IRISH SPAW With a short Discourse on Mineral Waters in general c. HAving been informed that neer unto this City there is a Spring of Mineral Waters of which divers persons have drank with good success as to the Cure of some particular Diseases I thought this a fit Subject on which to entertain my thoughts during my stay in this City in order to discover its particular Virtues and Use by the anatomising of its parts and by a Chymical examination of those Metals Minerals from whence it derived its Virtues In this design I transported my self upon the adjacent places to this Spring and there examin'd the Soil Situation distance from fresh and salt Waters its Sediment in the Spring the most proximate Hills Next I considered the Water it self its Colour Odour Tast Brightness Weight and Softness and what Skin Film or Skum it did afford on the superficies Having made some immediate observations on all these circumstantial accidents I applied my self unto such persons as might give me what further observations they could as to the Strength of the Water when it was first found the causes and proportions of its Decay and its Effects both internal and external To this I added those observations which I made during the divers tryals and examinations which are usually performed with Galls Oak-leaves Oaken-vessels Allum Spirit of Harts Horn distill'd Vinager Oil of Vitriol Oil of Tartar mixing heating and boyling of it with Milk and the like All which tryals standing good though weak but having no effect at all on Milk In the next place I entred upon the more judicious and Philosophical way of examination by Fire after a more particular method then is common whereby the Gass Silvester or wild volatile Spirits are so preserv'd that Judgment may pass upon them as well and with as much advantage as on those more gross and terrene parts which are rendred visible not only through common Distillation but by Precipitation also By these examens I was inform'd of the Minerals with which it was imbued though not to that degree that I could wish through its late mixture with common Waters Having found that though this Mineral Water is tinged with such Minerals as other efficatious Mineral Waters are yet in so small a proportion as would not raise any great hopes of success in the Cure of obstinate chronical Diseases but that like unto other weakly impregnated Mineral Waters in other parts it would require some Stimulator to add more virtue unto its weakness I thought it convenient to give here a short account of Mineral Waters in general to mention the inconveniencies which usually attend weakly imbued Waters and to offer at the means to supply those defects and to render them not only equal to the most powerful natural Mineral Springs but even to surpass them Which I will endeavour to perform with the greatest brevity that I can possible considering the large extant of this Subject after which I shall fall upon this particular Water which is the Theme of my Discourse That there is a universal Spirit or Spiritus mundi which God hath established for the continuation of the Species which Spirit gives a life to all beings is a truth long since agreed upon by the Learned but how and through what conveyers this Spirit is communicated and distributed into every individual being is that point unto which I would come as neer as this Subject does require without amplification Springs have been placed and appointed by a Divine Providence in the Earth for the same use as is the Air on the surface of it to be the Vehicles by which this universal Spirit of the World should be communicated to all the parts thereof yet with this difference that whereas in the Air that uncontroled Spirit acts more in its purity in the Waters it is attracted by matter and so becomes adherent to it The chief attracting matter of this Spirit is by the Philosophers esteemed to be Vitriol in which is contained that subtle acid Juice of the Earth the sole cause of that universal Fermentation which precedes all natural productions this its external Green and Azurine colours its internal acidity and its magnetick property testifies its Sulphur being that which attracts to it self the universal Spirit that opens unites gathers and coagulates the subterraneous vapours and forms them into Mineral and Metallick substances Without dispute
call'd Lapis Entalis which Schroder mentions together with a common grayish Sand and a Dust of the same colour is the compound of that Earth nearest to it which would give me occasion not to despair of finding some Aluminous Mine or Talk Veins in the neighbouring Hills if some pains were taken about it The Qualities and Virtues of the Minerals wherewith this Water is impregnated are these Mars or Iron is hot dry internally red it consists of a double Mercury burning and black of a red Sulphur and an impure Earth It is piercing opening and corroborating good against all Obstructions debility of the Stomach all Fluxes it is an Alkali therefore a great dulcifier of the Blood c. Vitriol there are divers sorts and of various colours it is commonly white blue and green I have seen some in Poland that was yellow and some red It abounds in a combustible Sulphur and a corrosive acid it contains a sweet anodine Oyl difficult to be had it is internally red It is stiptick emetick detersive hot and drying it partakes of the virtues of Mars and Venus it is good against all Inflamations especially of the Eyes Alum of Alum there are divers sorts also and divers comprehend Vitriol under the nature of Alum of which it only differs in a metallick Sulphur it is void of Tincture Paracelsus does attribute the Names of Salts unto external Ulcers according to the diversity of the congelations of Salts if it is a red Ulcer he calls it Vitriolick if without redness aluminous and because there are divers sorts of Alum in respects of Tasts and some that are wholly insipid as the Alumen Entalis plumosum c. There are likewise insipid tuberous Ulcers It is stiptick drying cooling coagulating and dissolving it most powerfully resists putrefactions precipitates evil Ferments allays the Inflamations of the Bowels and stops a Gangraine Sulphur it is called the Rosin the Lungs of the Earth the second acting principle existant in mixt bodies from it whatsoever is combustible either liquid or solid is called Sulphur or sulphurious There are two sorts one that is combustible and another that is incombustible The combustible is that which is burnt and yields no smoke but is inflamable The incombustible yields no flame but remains fix and permanent Sulphur is found either coagulated or liquid in the form of a Bitumen as it is found in the Mines before it is separated by fusion from its earth it is called Living It differs from Vitriol only in the external form and each may easily be transform'd into the other therefore they have much the same qualities and virtues only this last is more inflamable and a particular friend to the Lungs Thus much as to the Nature of those Minerals that have embued these Waters from whence may be gathered the reasons why it cures recent Obstructions cleanseth the Reins Uriters and Bladder aids Dropsical persons cases the pains of the Gout and Rhumatisms procures an Appetite fortifies the tone of the Stomach and corroborates the Visceras Now as to this essential Vitriolick Salt of Mars which I have mentioned to be used to add strength and energy to those Waters that are but superficially embued with Mineral tinctures it may seem strange to some persons and I expect that some will be sound amongst the ignorant mobile that will deride my Proposition but Hos oblatrantes caniculos cum contemptu praetereo I address my self to the learned only and to them I further add that besides the Extraction of this essential Salt from Mineral Waters and the rejoyning of it to others of the same nature or to its former Vehicle in a larger proportion then before I say that of late days all Mineral Waters either for drinking or bathing have been by some ingenious Artists so exactly imitated after some Philosophical Speculations used on the Natures of the natural Springs nay I may say outdone that by those factitious Mineral Waters as great Cures have been performed in the Patients particular habitations as any have been by the natural Springs upon the place and what is more the Artificial Baths brought to those several degrees of heat as the natural ones have at the Baths without the aid or assistance of any culinary fire to which have been added all the other accidents of Odours Tasts Colours and of Tinging Silver into a curious Solar tincture All which things were once pretended to at the place which goes under the notion of the Dukes Balneo in Longaore London But how performed I leave to all ingenious persons to judge that have used those Baths and drank of that Water The Art of Chymy has a multitude of Well-wishers as many pretenders to and more that court her designedly But ex quovis Ligno non fit Mercurius There are but few that make use of those two things which Galen reckons as necessary concurrants to the attaining the perfect Knowledge of Arts and Sciences or the nature of any simple Medicine viz. Experience and Reason from which there arose in his time two Sects of Physicians the one called Empiricks the others Methodists The Empirick did only observe the Operations and Effects of Medicines and never troubled themselves concerning their Natures or the reasons of those effects but used all Medicaments promiscuously to the prejudice of many The Methodists were not satisfied with the bare finding out of the Virtues of Medicaments but added to the OTI the ALOTI diving into the Nature of the same These he termed the two Legs of a true Physician upon which he would have him to stand and walk It is an easie matter to pretend to things and after the picking here and there some mouldy Receipts and Terms of Art to cant especially in Chymy before the unthinking multitude but first to entertain Philosophical Notions and then to reduce them unto Mechanical real Demonstrations belongs but to a few And now that my Reader may not put me in the number of the great Talkers and litle Doers as to what I have in this Discourse proposed I offer to produce after a month or six weeks time sufficient quantity of the Essential Vitriolick Salt of Mars extracted from Mineral Waters to supply this City every season of drinking the Waters or all the year long at the same reasonable Rates that any true and genuine Essential Salt of Mars can be prepared I could make larger proffers yet but I forbear lest it should be thought I were byassed by Interest or blown up with Ostentation The curious learned I shall ever be ready to serve in giving them all the satisfactory Demonstrations that I can possible in every particular which I have mentioned in this Discourse or in any thing else that I am capable Mean time if they please to spend som hours in the Tryals of such Chymical Preparations as I have faithfully delivered to the publick in my Intruduction to the French Author in a Treatise called A new Mystery in Physick discovered by Curing of Feavers and Agues with the Jesuits Powder printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1681. There they will find wherewith to satisfie their Curiosity till they command me further In meliorem partem interpretari debemus quae nobis dubia sunt POSTSCRIPT I Had but just ended this precedent Discourse when word was brought me of a new Mineral Spring found in the Road that leads to the first near the Gate I immediately went to examine it upon the place and caused some of the Water to be brought home to me for further inspection But after all sorts of Examens I found these last much less impregnated then the others though they participate of the same Minerals with the first In both a Vitriolick Salt of Mars predominates they have so weake a tincture of Alum that neither of them has the power to turn Milk though for a long time boyled together in equal proportions which speaks these Waters to be Alkalies and consequently dulcifiers of Acids This last found Spring has within less then a foot of it another of fresh common Water which peradventure does commix with it and may be the cause of its weakness and in my opinion neither of these Waters can last long untainted except care be taken to trace them on some more eminent ground where they may be secured from the insultations of violent Rains Flouds and Springs of common Waters To conclude considering the visible decay of either of these Waters though removed but to the City from their Springs especially the last which would scarce afford any Tincture at all with Galls it were very requisite that these Waters should be drank upon the place To which purpose I could wish there were better Accomodations and Conveniencies sutable to the occasions of the more modest of the modest Sex To this purpose if Rows of Tents were pitched on each side of the Green proportionable to the concourse of people and a large Walk left between it would supply in some measure the natural conveniences which a multitude of Shrubs Bushes besides some winding Dales betwixt close Hills in other places of the like resort do afford To which might be added according to the laudable custom of Foreign Nations which has been taken up of late in some parts of England also the divertisement of Musick Bowling Pins Lotteries Shooting or any other pastimes to disingage the Mind from too serious or melancholick thoughts Ut sit Mens sana in Corpore sano FINIS