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, ab 1 40, a patient of 
mine, consulted the Dr., then (1746 13 ) 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; artd 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 wnters 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 w r ell as from the profit 
that would arise from the resort of company and inhabitants. 
# H: sf: * * 
If any credit is to be given to ancient report, we may reason¬ 
ably conclude [that] the salutary effect of this water w-as 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 
pow r er of K ; but, by losing that pow r er and dropping the n y 
the name was rediculously converted into Chig. 14 
This much injured, tho’ usefull, w r ater is found issuing out 
of the declivity of the rising hill on the south side of the Wind- 
12 This once-eminent physician (1681 ?-i76i), 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). 
