MINERAL WATERS AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS OF ESSEX. 3
Spa House, with pump-room, was built ; and the spot became
in time a place of resort for those in search of health. Later,
however, for various reasons, most of our English Mineral
Springs fell into disrepute.
It is not difficult to understand why many English Spas,
situated in remote out-of-the-way spots and now completely
neglected, were once highly valued on account of their medi-
cinal properties. It must be remembered that, in former days,
the means of travel and transport were, by comparison with the
present time, exceedingly defective. Consequently, with most
things—articles of food and of clothing, for instance—the
local product was valued and consumed or used because it was
easily accessible or obtainable, though it may have been, in
quality, inferior to the products of other districts or countries
which were not readily accessible or obtainable. Such was the
case with medicinal springs and their waters. A spring in one's
own immediate vicinity was valued and visited, even though its
water was of less potency than that of some more distant well,
because the more distant well was inaccessible to ordinary
people and the cost of bringing water from it was too great.
One hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, a journey from
(say) Essex to Harrogate or Cheltenham was a greater under-
taking than a journey to Homburg or Marienbad is now : hence
the high value formerly set upon many small local springs which
are to-day completely forgotten. During the last sixty or seventy
years, the introduction of steam transport, in the form of railroads
and steamships, has rendered it easy either to visit or to bring
water from any known well, however distant. Consequently,
most wells of small medicinal value, however near home, are
wholly neglected.
Nor is this all ; for, in most matters of taste and fashion,
distance generally "lends enchantment to the view." To the
female mind, for instance, a hat from Paris appears incom-
parably superior to one designed in London or in one's own
town, even though in other respects the Paris hat may present
no obvious advantages over the other. Hence, it is not sur-
prising that, to any one in search of health, a famous well in
Austria or Germany seems to present advantages not possessed
by a well in (say) Kent or Lincolnshire, even though the water
of the two may possess, in reality, equal curative value.