64 THE CHIGWELL ROW MEDICINAL SPRINGS.
The late Dr. Frewin, Physician at Oxford,12 recommended
this water as preferable to any other found in this island in all
scorbutic and ill habits of body. A lady, abt 40, a patient of
mine, consulted the Dr., then (174613) at Bath, in a case of great
weakness, attended with appearances of scorbutic eruptions,
weak nerves, etc., etc.; when, after trying the effect of many
prescriptions, without any success, [he] at last recommended
the Chigwell-row water and air; which absolutely effected, in
about six or seven weeks, a perfect and lasting cure. He order'd
her to begin with half a pint every morning; to walk two hours.
after it; and, by degrees, to encrease the quantity to a full
pint. She told me it made her very sick for several mornings
at first, and would operate upwards and downwards three or
four times a day; but, by persevering, these effects grew more
moderate; till, at last, every excretion became natural; she
eat hearty; slept well; and returned home entirely well and.
free from every symptom she had complain'd of before for
many years.
This water, by some strange fatality or neglect of physical
enquiry, has been but little attended to of late years; and so
absurd are the common people that they have endeavour'd to
render the places where these waters find vent offensive, by
throwing in dead animals, etc.; never reflecting that, by this
brutish behaviour, they hindered themselves and others from
the benefit of so salutary a medicine, as well as from the profit
that would arise from the resort of company and inhabitants.
*****
If any credit is to be given to ancient report, we may reason-
ably conclude [that] the salutary effect of this water was well
known ages ago, the place where it issues out being dignify'd
with the name of King's well; for Chigwell is only a corruption
of King's-well; C and Ch, in the Saxon language, having the
power of K; but, by losing that power and dropping the n,.
the name was rediculously converted into Chig.14
This much injured, tho' usefull, water is found issuing out
of the declivity of the rising hill on the south side of the Wind-
12 This once-eminent physician (1681 ? 1761), a son of Ralph Frewin, of London, was.
born at Chigwell Row He took his degree at Oxford, but practised in London. He
married and survived three wives.
13 This date is added in the margin, apparently as an after-thought,
14 This discourse on the origin of the name Chigwell appears have been taken from
Morant's History of Essex, i., p. 164 (1768).