Early American medical doctors who studied ground water.

The purpose of this brief historical note is to bring to light the active status of hydrogeochemistry in early America (Davis and Davis 2005). Despite the fact that methods of chemical analyses were developed in Europe (Coley 1982), techniques and theory spread rapidly to the former British colonies (Seaman 1809; McNeven 1815). It is true that methods were, at times, slow and labor intensive, but the results were generally quite useful, even by modern standards (Davis and Davis 1997). Most of the chemical analyses of water that were completed prior to 1820 in the United States have several features in common. First, the samples were almost all from natural springs or from wells drilled into springs in order to capture more ground water. Second, a commercial interest was attached to the source of samples. Most commonly water samples were from a spa. The best known example would be the mineral springs in the town of Saratoga Springs, New York (Kemp 1912; Siegel 2004). Third, results of the analyses were expressed as hypothetical compounds. Indeed, the recognition that ‘‘carbonate of lime’’ or a large number of other materials were actually compounds of elements was not fully realized until after about 1820. Fourth, and most important, virtually all of the analytic work was done by scientists trained as medical doctors. The use of mineral springs as sources of drinking water was, perhaps, secondary to its medicinal use. Springs in Saratoga Springs (Figure 1) may provide an exception. During the Revolutionary War, a portion of the American army was quartered in Saratoga Springs. ‘‘The soldiers became so attached to this water, that during their stay much less quantity of spirits was drunk by the men, and that fewer instances of drunkenness came to the knowledge of their officers’’ (Meade 1817, 25). The fact that medical doctors were the ones almost exclusively involved with the analyses of water samples must have been a direct result of the prevailing belief among most doctors of the time that spring water, particularly brackish spring water, had almost magical curative properties. As an example, Seaman (1809) reported that water from Congress Spring in the town of Saratoga Springs was useful in curing dyspepsia, scrofula, intestinal worms, gangrenous ulcers, dysentery, cutaneous eruptions, and hypochondriasis ‘‘. . . arising from indolence and luxury of city life.’’ Somewhat earlier, Howe (1804) had proposed that water from this same spring could be used to treat deafness, palsy, apoplexy, cholera, consumption, colic, rickets, and madness. In spite of the importance placed on the medicinal value of spring water, little general agreement existed as to the importance of many of the individual constituents dissolved in the water. What one doctor considered to be beneficial could have been something to be avoided according to another doctor. As a partial solution to this problem, Steel (1817) advocated an ‘‘experimental’’ approach. The observed reaction of the patient to ingestion of mineral water was a guide to future medication. Obviously, if the patient survived, such a qualitative approach was not much of an improvement over some completely random system of evaluation. Among the doctors doing analytic work with water quality, Steel was a particularly harsh critic both of the medical practice and the lack of accurate chemical analyses. His comments were laced with sarcasm mostly directed at a book written by William Meade, who was a relatively recent arrival in the United States from Great Britain. The following is a quote from the last pages of a book by Steel.