Chalybeate

  Chalybeate is a word meaning "containing iron". Chalybeate waters are also known as ferruginous waters.

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Name

The word "chalybeate" is derived from the Latin word for steel, "chalybs", which follows from the Greek word "khalups". Khalups is the singular form of Khalubes or Chalybes, who were mythical people living on Mount Ida in north Asia Minor who had invented iron working.

Ferruginous comes from the Latin word "ferreus" meaning "made of iron," which is derived from the Latin word "ferrum" which means "iron."

History

Early in the 17th century, chalybeate water was said to have health-giving properties and many people have promoted its qualities. Lord Dudley North discovered the chalybeate spring at Tunbridge Wells in 1606. Dudley North’s physician claimed that the waters contained ‘vitriol’ and the waters of Tunbridge Wells could cure:

the colic, the melancholy, and the vapours; it made the lean fat, the fat lean; it killed flat worms in the belly, loosened the clammy humours of the body, and dried the over-moist brain.

He also apparently said, in verse:

"These waters youth in age renew

Strength to the weak and sickly add

Give the pale cheek a rosy hue

And cheerful spirits to the sad."

The English physician Thomas Sydenham prescribed chalybeate waters for hysteria in 1693.

The Recoaro Spa is on the outskirts of Vicenza, Italy. In 1689, a spring of ferruginous water rich in gas and tasting pleasantly was discovered by Count Lelio Piovene of Vicenza. Local residents called the water from this spring "Saint Anthony's miraculous water" because they claimed it had therapeutic properties.

Dr. Anthony Relhan (ca. 1715-1776), promoted the drinking of mineral waters and particularly water from the chalybeate spring in St Anne's Well Gardens, and published A Short History of Brighthelmstone; with Remarks on its Air, an Analysis of its Waters, Particularly of an uncommon Mineral one, long discovered, though but lately used in 1761.^[1] This led to a substantial increase in public interest in drinking mineral water. The town of Enfield, New Hampshire, even changed its name temporarily to Relhan because of the profound public interest in this form of therapy.^[2]

Princess Victoria, later Queen Victoria, drank the waters every day during her stay in Tunbridge Wells in 1834. She and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, would pay a visit to the spring and then enjoy a stroll along the Pantiles. The water contains a significant level of dissolved mineral salts, with iron and manganese contributing to its characteristic flavour.

Content of the chalybeate waters from Tunbridge Wells

An analysis in 1967 showed it to contain (parts per million):

• Iron(II) carbonate, FeCO3 25.3
• Manganese(II) carbonate, MnCO3 4.6
• Calcium sulphate, CaSO4 60.9
• Magnesium sulfate, MgSO4 13.4
• Magnesium chloride, MgCl2 7.8*
• Sodium chloride, NaCl 57.2
• Potassium chloride, KCl 7.3

Places with chalybeate springs

Chalybeate springs are found in:

England

• Alexandra Park in Hastings, a town in East Sussex
• Bermondsey Spa, to the south-east of the Tower of London. Around 1770 Thomas Keyse opened some tea gardens. With the discovery of a chalybeate spring the gardens became known as Bermondsey Spa. About 1784 Keyse received a licence to “provide in his garden musical entertainments” like those in the Vauxhall Gardens. They were varied by occasional exhibitions of fireworks and the price of admission was one shilling. [1]
• Chalybeate Kennels near Ingleborough in North Yorkshire
• Dorton Spa in the village of Dorton, Buckinghamshire (said to contain four times the iron of Tunbridge Wells)
• The Gloucester Spa [2] in the city of Gloucester
• Hampstead in North London
• Harrogate, a Victorian spa town in North Yorkshire
• Kedleston Hall near Quarndon in Derbyshire
• Kilburn in North London^[3]
• Nill Well, between Yelling and Papworth Everard in Cambridgeshire
• Sandrock Spring, Isle of Wight - discovered 1811; buried in landslide in 1978
• Southwick, Northamptonshire
• St. Anne's Well Gardens, Hove, Sussex
• St. Blaise's Well in the municipal borough of Bromley, a suburb of London in Kent
• Tunbridge Wells, a Wealden town in Kent

Ireland

• Moydow Castle, Longford

Italy

• Recoaro Spa, Vicenza

Poland

• Krynica

Russia

• Lipetsk, in central Russia

Scotland

• The Chapeltoun Burn source near Stewarton in East Ayrshire
• Fraserburgh, in northeast Scotland
• Peterhead

Spain

• Lanjarón, a village in the Alpujarras

United States

• Brandywine Springs, Wilmington, Delaware
• Chalybeate Springs in Gadsden, Alabama
• Sharon Springs, a village in Schoharie County, New York[3]

Wales

• Llandrindod Wells in Radnorshire

Places named for chalybeate springs

Several places throughout the world have taken their name from similar springs, including:

• Chalybeate Springs, Alabama, Lawrence County
• Chalybeate, Mississippi
• Chalybeate Springs, Kentucky
• Chalybeate Springs, Georgia, Meriwether County
• Chalybeate Springs, North Carolina, Harnett County
• Chalybeate Springs, Virginia, Scott County
• Sweet Chalybeate, Alleghany County, Virginia

References

1. ^ Relhan's predecessor, the eminent physician Dr. Richard Russell, an eminent physician, and resident of Lewes and Brighton (which are close to the chalybeate spring of Hove) had advocated drinking seawater.
2. ^ The Papers on The History of the Town of Enfield and New Hampshire in the Dartmouth College Library, collected by Nellie Pierce, 1988
3. ^ C R Elrington (Editor), T F T Baker, Diane K Bolton, Patricia E C Croot (1989). Kilburn, Edgware Road and Cricklewood. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9 (sourced from British History Online). Retrieved on 2007-11-10.

• http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=45479
• http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Bromley
• Kelly's Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, 1867
• Recoaro Spa web site