CHALYBEATE encyclopedia topics

CHALYBEATE - 2 reference results

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

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. (This date cannot be right as he was dead by then.)

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. 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.

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 sulfate, 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.
Chalice Well, Glastonbury
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 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
Lees, Greater Manchester
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 KentIreland
Moydow Castle, LongfordItaly
Recoaro Spa, VicenzaPoland
KrynicaRussia
Lipetsk, in central RussiaScotland
The Chapeltoun Burn source near Stewarton in East Ayrshire
Fraserburgh, in northeast Scotland
Peterhead
Red Well, Whitehills, AberdeenshireSpain
Lanjarón, a village in the AlpujarrasUnited States
Brandywine Springs, Wilmington, Delaware
Chalybeate Springs in Gadsden, Alabama
Chalybeate Springs, Jeffersonville, Indiana ; Resort and spa, 1800's (destroyed and buried by the Big Four Railroad, 1907)
Chalybeate Springs, Kentucky
Chalybeate spring near Bedford Springs in Bedford, Pennsylvania
Sharon Springs, a village in Schoharie County, New York
Brushton, New York, a village in Franklin County, New YorkWales
Llandrindod Wells in Radnorshire