128 Artificial Preparation of Medicinal Waters. 
ferent materials from. certain strata over which it flows, or whether 
these substances, in the proper quantities, be artificially added to the 
water; the hand that supplies these materials, as Bergman so justly 
observes, can make no difference in the result. 
In order to illustrate this subject by a familiar example, I shall now 
endeavor to explain how one of the least complicated medicinal waters 
may be effectually imitated, leaving no doubt in the mind of any un- 
prejudiced individual, that the artificial preparation is precisely simi- 
lar to the natural water at the spring. 
For this purpose, I shall select the water at Epsom, in England. 
The taste of this water was so peculiarly saline, that at a very early 
period of time it was used medicinally and found to possess valuable 
qualities as a cathartic, but the nature of its contents was then un- 
known, and it was not until the discoveries of Black, Bergman, and 
other chemists, that the real properties of sulphate of magnesia were 
investigated, when it was soon ascertained that the Epsom water de- 
rived all its qualities from this neutral salt; therefore, from having 
been extracted from it in large quantities by evaporation, it has since 
been denominated Epsom salts, and, as is well known, it is used 
medicinally when dissolved in common water; thus, even at so 
early a period, forming an artificial preparation which had precisely 
the same taste and possessed the same medicinal qualities. When 
further investigating the properties of magnesia, it was found that 
the salt which was supposed to be peculiar to Epsom water could be 
easily prepared artificially, in a direct way, by the union of sulphuric 
acid and magnesia; all mystery disappeared, and it was apparent that 
this spring possessed no quality which any other water impregnated 
with sulphate of magnesia may not be easily made to possess. 
There is another mineral water, of a- rather more complicated na- 
ture, to which I shall now allude; it is the celebrated Cheltenham 
spring, in England, which is perhaps as much frequented as any in 
Europe ; it is however stripped of all its mystery, when it is known 
that its medicinal qualities are derived, chiefly, from an impregnation 
of neutral salts, such as sulphate of soda and sulphate of magnesia, 
in the following proportions; eighty grains of sulphate of soda and 
forty grains of sulphate of magnesia, with about seven grains of mu- 
riate of magnesia and lime, with scarcely an appreciable quantity of 
iron, and only seven cubic inches of carbonic acid in one quart of 
this water. 
