68 MINERAL WATERS AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS OF ESSEX.
do possess some slight medicinal properties as shown by the
effect the water at Tilbury and Hockley produce in the case
of cattle, as noticed above.152 This effect cannot, of course, be
ascribed to the fidel quantum sufficiat which may have been
operative in the case of human patients.
ADDENDA.
When the foregoing matter was read in abstract before the Essex
Field Club, on the 30th November 1907, it gave rise to a lively and
interesting discussion, in which Messrs. William Cole, F.L.S.,
W. H. Dalton, F.G.S., T. S. Dymond, F.C.S., Joseph Wilson, and
Miller Christy, among others, took part. Mr. Dalton has been
good enough to set down his remarks in writing, in the form of a
short Critical Note, which is printed as an Appendix (p. 70).
At a subsequent meeting of the Club, on the 25th January
1908, Mr. Cole again brought up the subject for discussion. He
reviewed the conditions of the wells at the time the samples of
water were taken for analysis, and gave reasons for the supposition
that some chemical or bacteriological changes might have taken
place in such stagnant wells. He suggested that further analysis of
samples taken under different conditions might possibly give results
showing that the mineral reputations of the waters were not merely
fanciful. Others who joined in the discussion were Mr. Miller
Christy, Mr. Dalton, Mr. Wilson, Mr. John Spiller, F.C.S., Mr. W.
Ping, F.C.S., and Mr. J. C. Shenstone, F.L.S. (see Essex Naturalist,
xv, p. 259).
Subsequently, Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., supplied additional
information in reference to the wells at Chigwell Row and Woodford
Wells, and Mr. Edwin E. Turner notes relating to the springs at
Mark's Hall and Witham, as follows :—
The Witham Spa (p. 19).—Mr. E. E. Turner writes, as to the
exact site of the well (see p. 25) :—" I well remember that, when I
was a boy, nearly forty years ago, we used to count about a dozen
152 See ante, pp. 220 and 245.