THE CHIGWELL ROW MEDICINAL SPRINGS. 69
disposition. By the experiment on page—[see p. 66], the salt
I procured by exhalation, the crystals were tolerably clear and
transparent, tho' small: their figures sexangular and rectangu-
lar parallelograms (fig. 1 and 2) [see Plate I.].21
I shall now . . . make a few remarks and observations
on this purging chalybeate water, and then conclude.
Rules and Observations upon the Chigwell-Row Water.—What
I have said in the proceeding pages will be sufficient to convince
the reader y' this water possesses the virtues of steel or iron,
as well as those of a nitrious or sea salt. If this is the true case
(as I firmly believe it is, not only from the various experiments
I have made by way of analysis, but by taking it myself and
giving it to others), I think I may safely recommend it for the
following complaints:—In all obstructions and where the pulse
is languid and the patient sluggish and lumpish; [also] in
hysterical cases. In a clorosis, it must act as an excellent
deobstruent by increasing the motion of the circulating fluids.
In ill habits of body and wore-out constitutions [caused] by
being too free with wine, etc., or promiscuous commerce, where
the body is enervated and the fibres relax'd, this water must
act as an excellent strengthener; also in weaknesses of the
stomach, loss of appetite, chronicle head-achs, impotency,
fluor albus, obstructed menstrua, etc., etc.
Everyone knows that iron and steel has, for many ages,
been given as a medicine in various forms and preparations, and
[that these], by repeated experience, have been found to be
possessed of valuable qualities; but no preparation can by any
means equall so fine a solution of this metal as nature herself
has made and blended wth salts, etc., in such a manner as no
chemical process can imitate, nor no composition so well adapted
for many diseases which seem to be calculated to remedy the
many complaints we poor mortals are subject to.
"from exposure to air, and the "addition of sulphuric acid would dissolve at least the
"suspended peroxide. The surmise as to the 'separation of the nitrious and vitrioline parts
"by ye air,' read as the formation of insoluble film and precipitate of the iron (originally in
"solution as green vilriol), without change of the aluminous and magnesian 'nitrious' salts,
"attests the chemical acumen of the author. The Scarborough waters are similarly charged
"with iron, alumina, and magnesia."
24 Mr. Dalton writes :—"The rectangular prisms (as they appear to be) of sulphate of
"magnesia, are in reality rhombic, with an angle of 90o34', only distinguishable from a
"right-angle by an accurate goniometer. The hexagonal prisms are those of carbonate of
"iron, the evaporation having been sufficiently rapid to prevent its decomposition. The
slower exhalation' on glass left but few crystals, and these not specifically identifiable,
whilst most of the solid matter became amorphous peroxide, forming high-water marks or
eaches round the margins of the decreasing pool and its islands of crystals."