Buxton and its waters: an analytical account of their medicinal properties, and general effects

Introduction

DIET.

VENTILATION, CLIMATE, AND CHANGE OF AIR.

BODILY EXERCISE.

DRESS.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF WATER.

MINERAL WATERS.

SLEEP.

EFFECTS OF MENTAL CULTURE ON HEALTH, &C.

WITH A TABULAR ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL MINERAL WATERS.

flf pufilu :

“ Addressed to the common sense of the intelligent and observing man, Avho may verify the greater part of its illustrations by his own daily and untechnical observation.” — Leigh Hunts London Journal.

“ Worthy of the attention of not only invalids and dyspeptics, but all persons whose health is liable to be affected by sedentary employments.” — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

“ A good Work.” — Dr. Johnson's Medico -Chirurgical Review.

OPINIONS OF THE PUBLIC PRESS.

“We shall be greatly surprised if, in the course of a few months, this book is not held indispensable to the health and comfort of every -well-ordered family, not under the superintendence of a resident physician. Without meaning to detract from the great merit of many works of the same kind at present before the public, we may be allowed to say that, as a family book, Dr. Robertson’s ‘ Treatise on Diet and Regimen ’ is unequalled in the language.” — Sun.

“ This is a most valuable treatise, ably and popularly written.” — Old England.

“ It furnishes full and practical information ; its language is concise, and its style clear.” — Liverpool Journal,

‘‘ A work of this kind, candid yet firm, learned yet clear, plain without being dull, and convincing without being dogmatical, can scarcely fail being acceptable to the invalid or dyspeptic.’’— Manchester Times.

“ We have been much pleased with this book ; it is equally distant from pedantry and quackery ; and is remarkable for the simplicity of its language, the clearness of its explanations of physiological facts, the obvious justness and good sense which mark its reasonings and suggestions.” — Leeds Mercury.

“ The sound advice which the author gives, as well as the pleasing manner in Avhich that advice is conveyed, cannot fail to interest every one. We heartily commend Dr. Robertson’s book to the favour of our friends.” — Nottingham Journal.

“ We have read this volume Mith great interest ; it contains many valuable hints for invalids, expressed in the plainest language, and which few can read without advantage.”

Derby Reporter.

“ Wc must conclude our brief notice of Dr. Robertson’s work ; and we do so by strongly recommending it to the reading public. Its matter is valuable, and in many respects oriffinal. It is a work in which common sense, aided by experience, is applied to subjects of the greatest consequence to our well ■beiu2;, and to subjects Mhich are seldom treated e.xcept in anariow aiul bigoted spirit. The author is an observer and thinker for himself; and we say for him —

BUXTON

AND ITS WATERS.

BUXTON

AND ITS WATEKS:

AN

ANALYTICAL ACCOUNT OF THEIR MEDICINAL PROPERTIES, AND GENERAL EFFECTS.

BY

WILLIAM HENRY ROBERTSON, M.D.

PHYSICIAN TO THB BUXTON BATH CHARITY.

LONDON:

AND VV. MOORE, BUXTON.

MDCCCXXXVIII,

TO HIS GRACE

THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K.G.

ETC. ETC. ETC.

■ My Lord Duke,

I venture to avail myself of your permission to dedicate this treatise on Buxton and Buxton Waters to your Grace.

Buxton is indebted to the representatives of so many generations of your Grace’s family for a large proportion of its advantages, that its prosperity cannot fail, if from hereditary attachment alone, to be connected with your warmest wishes ; and the continued proofs that your liberality affords of the untiring interest you take in its welfare encourages me to hope, that you will regard with favour any effort, however humble, to extend the knowledge of the medicinal virtues of its waters, and to render them more widely useful in relieving human suffering.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord' Duke,

WILLIAM HENRY ROBERTSON.

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Preface

The following work is by no means so complete as I could have wished it to be, or as I hope it may one day become. Its publication might, indeed, have been delayed until the deficiencies alluded to had been supplied ; but it is important that an account of the medicinal effects of these waters be laid before the public. Every week’s observation shows it to be necessary that people should be informed of the effects of these waters, of the power they possess as a remedial agent, of the danger of using them injudiciously ; and the following account claims to be correct in its prin-

VI 11

PREFACE.

cijDal outlines, although it is inadequately filled up in many of its parts.

Observations which might have been accumulating for years — which might have filled up all the outlines referred to — which might have rendered Buxton, in jioint of usefulness and consequent importance, second to no watering-place in the kingdom, and perhaps to no watering-

place in the world, have been lost ; facts, which only many years of observation can supply, have been left unrecorded ; and, with the exception of a very few remarks on the general effects of these waters, their powers as a medicinal agent have never been taken notice of. They have been carefully analysed, and this had been done very many years ago ; and the more recent analysis has done little more than confirm that of Dr. Pearson. They have been used medicinally from a period long antecedent to any authentic record,

PREFACE.

IX and were probably known to be possessed of remarkable medicinal powers long before the invasion of the Romans into Britain. And yet^ while every other mineral water has received almost an undue share of attention, the thermal springs of Buxton are only known in the immediate vicinity to be good for rheumatism, and their usefulness is not known as far as the borders of the county in which they are situated ; and even medical men are quite unaware of the degree of their medicinal powers. When it is added, that this ignorance of their powers leads manv to leave them untried, whose cases nothins: else, unless it be time, can relieve, and that many of those who do make trial of them, use them, on this account, in a state of system by no means such as to give them the best chance of doing good, or in a state of system in which they cannot but do harm, there appears to be sufficiently

X

PREFACE.

strong reason for introducing this work, even in its present crude state, to public attention. I trust to be able hereafter to complete the plan of this work in a way more satisfactory to myself. In the meanv/hile, I commit it with all its faults to the public, and venture to hope that the circumstances just mentioned will deprive what blame it may deserve of much of its severity.

W. H. R.

The Square, Buxton,

^ illcljl'cal Account

OF

BUXTON AND BUXTON WATERS.

Chapter I

“ In these natural and laudable pursuits, two errors are particularly to be avoided : the first, not to confound those things of which we are ignorant with those we know, or rashly yield our assent without due investigation ; the second, not to bestow too much labour and study on obscure, intricate, and unprofitable subjects.”

Cicero de Officiis.

According to the statement of Messrs. Lysons, in their admirable History of Derbyshire, the word Buxton was at one time (temp. Hen. III.) written Bawkestanes ; and it is added, “ it seems probable that it was originally written Badestanes^ deriving the name from its stone baths.”

The great antiquity of Buxton as a bathing - place is put beyond all reasonable doubt, by the following passages from Dr. Pearson’s work on these waters*.

* “ Observations and Experiments for investigating the Chymical History of the Tepid Springs of Buxton,” &c. &c. London, 1784.

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“ Ruins, remains, and vestiges of art, which were allowed to be of Roman workmanship, that have been discovered at different times in the neighbourhood, and adjoining these celebrated waters, are the records from which it is collected, that the Romans made use of the tepid w^aters of Buxton as baths. Independently of these testimonies, it is extremely improbable that for the space of near five centuries, during which period England was provinciated to a nation vdth whom warm bathing was the most usual luxury, the celebrated fountains of Buxton should not be employed ; the heat of which, although most probably not so great as that of their artificial baths, was capable of producing agreeable sensations upon immersion, and to the employment of which they would be farther invited by the crystalline appearance, want of colour, taste, and smell of the water.

“ Althousfh we have no records to show that these waters were employed for the purpose of health or pleasure previously to the conquest of part of Britain by the Romans, or for ten or eleven centuries after it was abandoned by that people ; yet we are not to conclude that they were not made use of on both these accounts. Such were the state of the arts, and the occupations of mankind, in tliose ages, that we can scarcely expect

BUXTON WATERS.

any relation of the effects of these springs, had they been in request.”

It is of little importance, in a work chiefly intended to supply an account of the medicinal properties of these waters, that it should be determined whether this evidence should be considered to be satisfactory or not. But when it is mentioned that the evident remains of a Roman road are distinctly observable within a very short distance of Buxton, that this road retains the name of Batham Gate^^ and that the name of the road was most likely assigned to it at the time it was made ; that the remains of an old bath, discovered in 1781, exhibited sufficient marks of having been constructed many centuries ago ; and that the Buxton waters possess a sufficiently elevated temperature, and are poured out in such large quantities, as to attract observation in any age ; — there will perhaps be few doubts entertained, that the Buxton waters were used medicinally at a very early age, and may have been used as medicinal baths as early as the days of the Caesars.

However doubtful some may be inclined to

“ * Several ancient roads concentrate at this spot, particularly one called the Bath-way, or Bathani-gate, which commences at Brough, a Roman station near Hope, and was traced by the late Mr. Pegge ; and another that came from Manchester, and is known in different parts of its course by the appellation of High Street, Street Fields, Street Lane, Old Gate, &c.” — Rees’

CvCLOPiSDIA.

B 2 think the evidence adduced in favour of the opinion, that these waters were used in the earlier ages, it is certain they had attained considerable celebrity in the reign of Elizabeth, that the accommodations the place afforded were no longer suffi - cient to meet the wants of its visitors, and that the Hall, then erected by the Earl of Shrewsbury, was visited by some of the principal persons of the age. The unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, appears to have visited Buxton four different times, while in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, in the years 1573, 1576, 1580, and 1582. For a quaint account of the circumstances leading to and connected with these visits, see Lodge’s Illustrations of British History. From the same authority we learn that these waters were used medicinally by the two greatest men of those times — the Earl of Leicester and Lord Burleigh.

Before the Reformation, the medicinal virtues of these waters had been attributed to the good offices of their patron saint, St. Anne ; and the walls of a chapel, consecrated to the saint, were decorated with the crutches which were no longer required by the cripples the Buxton baths had cured*. In the earlier years of the Common-

BUXTON WATERS.

i> wealth, Buxton appears to have suffered from the superstitious errors of its earlier patrons. Conceived to keep up the Romish doctrines of saintlyinterference in human affairs, these interesting memorials of gratitude for health restored were destroyed ; and so bigoted had the national feeling become against everything connected with the unpopular creed, that the waters were, for a short time, prevented from being used by public authority. It may very fairly be inferred, that nothing but the real efficacy of these waters in the cure of disease could ever thereafter have restored them to any degree of reputation.

Yet the reputation of these waters would appear to have been little influenced by these circumstances. The cures they had effected could not be disproved ; and, as they were no longer to be considered as attributable to saintly influence, they began to be ascribed to the properties of the v/aters themselves. The Hall would appear to have been well frequented ; and it is said “ to have been at that time reckoned a fine mansion.”

Whieli has been thus rendered into English : —

“ This cures the palsied members of the old,

Returning, the ingrates throw them away.”

“ About 1670, this building was destroyed, and a new edifice erected by William, the third Earl of Devonshire. This mansion, with, probably, various alterations and additions, is the principal hotel at Buxton, now called The Hall!’

Thus wrote Dr. Pearson, about the year 1784 ; a year or two before which time, the foundations of a noble pile of building had been laid, called, from its form. The Crescent.

Under disadvantages to which, perhaps, no watering-place had ever been exposed, had Buxton hitherto been struggling. Situated in the midst of a wdld extensive waste of moorland ; with hardly a tree within miles of it, unless at the bottom of a few scattered valleys ; the land uncultivated ; the country unsheltered from the winds ; a more dreary and inhospitable-looking spot than Buxton must have appeared in those days, cannot well be imagined. Yet, tempted by the well-earned reputation of its waters, people had ventured into this region of barren wildness ; and such were the benefits they derived, that, without having a single one of the usual watering-place attractions to offer to its visitors, the place maintained its celebrity.

But a wizard’s hand was now to be stretched over this wild scene, and cover, as far as practicable, its land with verdure and its rocks vsdth foliage. Between thirty and forty years have

BUXTON WATERS.

served to do more than human imagination could have dreamed of as being possible ; and, while the scenery of such a country of hills and dales must always be wild, the wildness is in a great degree robbed of its sense of bleak desolation, and, even already, the country immediately around Buxton must be characterised as beautiful.

That Buxton, under the disadvantageous circumstances I have mentioned, should have been yearly resorted to by thousands of invalids, may be justly advanced as one of the strongest proofs that could be given of the power of its waters in relieving and curing disease.

CHAPTER II. ‘ ‘ But here I feel amendsi

The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet.”

Milton’s Samson Agonistes.

“ Buxton is situated on the western side of the north part of the county of Derby, in a tract of elevated, uneven, and hilly moorland^ called therefore the High Peake^ or the Peake Hundred.

“ The Peake is about fourteen or sixteen miles broad from the south-west to the north-east side; its whole leno-th from the north-west to the south-

O

east may be twenty miles, and it is supposed to contain one-fourth part of the whole county, or 170,000 acres.

“ This reoion of hioh land is the southern ex-

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tremity of the ridge or chain of mountains and hills that extends from the Cheviot hills in Scotland nearly through the middle of the island, and tenninates in the north part of Derbyshire. As

BUXTON WATERS.

this range of eminent land runs through the middle of the north of England, as the Apennine does through Italy, it has been called the English Apennine.

“ The British Apennine may be reckoned, for the sake of forming a general conception of it, from fifteen to twenty miles broad. Near Scotland it is much broader, and as the island to the north of Derbyshire contracts itself considerably in breadth, this tract of high land bears no small proportion to the breadth of the north part of England.

“ The whole length of this ridge of land appears to be about a hundred and forty miles

Buxton is surrounded by hills, the majority of which are formed of the secondary or mountain limestone ; on the north-western margin of a large formation of which the town is situated. The well-known characters commonly possessed by rocks of this fonnation, — their abrupt and precipitous cragginess, — the almost perpendicular clefts by' which rock is often divided from rock, — the caverns which abound in its interior — are all singularly remarkable in this particular formation, and add greatly to the scenic grandeur by which Buxton is immediately surrounded. A stratum of the earth’s crust ascertained to be older than the

* Dr. Pearson.

coal-formation, the mountain limestone must have been upheaved to the surface by some gigantic and primeval volcanic convulsion; and in that great intestinal struggle, there can be little doubt, were these fissures caused, through which the thermal waters escape to the surface, and give to Buxton its existence and its celebrity. This formation contains the earlier vestiges of organization. It is rich in the remains of the classes of animals that are conceived to have been the first denizens of our earth. It contains those marbles, for which the county of Derby has long been famous ; two varieties of which owe their peculiar appearance to the abundant remains of shells, &c., contained in their substance, and which variegate so singularly their polished surface*.

To the mountain limestone this extensive dis-

• It is interesting to look somewhat more closely than is generally done into the rocks about Buxton. In many places they are so evidently composed wholly of shells, as to make it no difficult matter to conceive that probably the whole of this extensive limestone formation is the accumulated result of animal organization, — as to prove that this country, now so much elevated above the level of the sea, was at one time covered by it, — and that it must, at some far remote time, have been upheaved from its depths by some violent convulsion, and raised to its present height above the level of those waters, in the depths of which its rocks W'cre so singularly and wonderfully formed.

Ovid. Metam.

BUXTON WATERS.

trict owes its picturesque features, and the visitors of Buxton are indebted to this formation for most of the scenic attractions in its vicinity. Poole’s Hole, within half a mile of Buxton ; the Peak Cavern at Castleton ; the beautiful rocks by which the river W ye runs, and the dales through which it passes, in its course from Axe-Edge, a few miles to the west of Buxton, till it joins the Derwent beyond Bakewell, and in its course thence to Matlock, are only so many of the features of the mountain limestone formation. An enumeration of these features includes a large proportion of the beauties of Derbyshire. I have mentioned Castleton, and may add Cow-dale, through which one of the roads from Buxton passes, — Chee-tor, and the dale of which this rock forms one of the sides, — Millar’s Dale, — Monsal Dale, — and the romantic beauty of Matlock itself, — all owe their existence to this, decidedly the most picturesque of the geological formations that map the surface of the earth*.

* Tlie scenery of the Peak of Derbyshire and the adjacent country, together •with certain mansions, which for several reasons are well worth seeing, supply a very pleasing and profitable mode of occupying their leisure time to such of the Buxton visitors as are blessed with adequate powers of locomotion. Chatsworth House, the princely seat of the Duke of Devonshire, which has been aptly called “ The Palace of the Peak,” — Haddon Hall, a dilapidated but beautiful ruin, once the residence of “ The Vernon,” — Alton Towers, the mansion

Did this comprise the whole of the debt which Buxton owes to the formation on which it immediately rests, we should he justified in attaching to it considerable value. But it is fitting that some other points, in which it is of more immediate advantage, should be taken notice of in a medical treatise on the locality and the waters of Buxton. The inhabitants of those districts of which limestone fonns the superficial crust, enjoy a singular degree of freedom from many of the epidemic and endemic complaints, to which the inhabitants of adjoining districts are found to be liable. Unless in peculiar situations, and from the immediate contiguity of stagnant waters, which are a fertile and fearful source of disease to all in their vicinity, fever may be said to be unknown throughout this extensive formation ; and I have not been able to ascertain that an accredited case

of tlie Earl of Shrewsbury, with its unequalled gardens, — Beresford Hall, and its immediate neighbourhood, connected intimately with the memory of the venerable Izaak alton, — Lyme Hall, the ancient scat of the time-ennobled family of Lee, full of interesting remains of the past, which carry the mind back hundreds of years, and almost enable it to picture to itself the lives and doings of perhaps not less than fifteen generations, — these arc so many items in the list of things worth seeing in the neighbourhood of Buxton. Add to these the wonders and natural beauties of hills and dales, and ravines, and stupendous caverns, Dovedale, the vale of the Gboit, and a long string of little less celebrated et-csetera, and it will be admitted that no watering-place can he more happy than Buxton in its vicinage.

BUXTON WATERS.

of fever of the malignant type has ever occurred in Buxton or its immediate neighbourhood. The cholera, that fearful scourge, which so recently visited the adjoining districts, was utterly unknown in or near Buxton. My inquiries lead me to think that not a single case of cholera occurred in any part of this limestone formation. I have been told, that in Germany, during the prevalence of cholera, the physicians sent all, whose circumstances enabled them to follow the advice, to the limestone districts, with the promise, that in those districts they would be secure from its invasion. It would be interesting to ascertain how far this was applicable to our own country. It would, indeed, be a valuable addition to our means of arresting the progress of diseases, could we assign geological limits to their extension. Be these matters as they may, thus much may be said with justice. The town and neighbourhood of Buxton enjoys a singular degree of freedom from epidemic, and even more especially from endemic complaints. The influenza, which was so lately and so justly regarded as a more dreadful visitation than cholera, and which is said to have carried off a much larger proportion of our population than cholera had done, was in very few cases fatal in Buxton ; and in those few cases, other previously existing complaints, especially the incurable complaint — old age, appear to have been the real cause of death. Typhus and intermittents are unknown to its inhabitants. Consumption is comparatively rare ; scrofulous affections comparatively infrequent ; an extraordinary degree of uninterrupted health is the lot of the people ; and I may venture to add, that an extraordinary number of them live to an advanced period of life.

The inhabitants of limestone districts have generally to use for all domestic purposes, the calcareous water which is the common product of the springs on this fonnation. It is, perhaps, questionable, how far this is really disadvantageous to those who have been accustomed to the use of calcareous water; hut there is no question that such water is exceedingly apt to disagree with those who have not been accustomed to its use. If this applies to people who are in the possession of health, it is still more likely to apply to the invalided, whose systems are morbidly susceptible to every change. In these cases especially, such water is apt to prove \mdii\y sti?nulatl7i(j/ But farther, cases might, d priori, he expected to occur, in which small doses of calcareous water, taken medicinally, might be useful, which cases would be over-dosed, and therefore injured, were it made the only procurable fluid vehicle of the alimentary supplies. This objection does not

BUXTON WATERS.

apply to Buxton, whether it is visited for the purpose of breathing the pure dry air of the Peak, or of bathing in, or drinking, its calcareous waters. It has been said, that Buxton is situated almost on the border of the limestone formation. Within a ver}" short distance of the town, in the line of the Manchester road, the gritstone formation is the superficial stratum; and from this fonnation, which yields the most pure spring water — the water most free from foreign ingredients — are the principal houses in Buxton supplied : giving its inhabitants and its visitors the threefold advantage of living on the limestone formation, drinking and using for all domestic purposes the water from the gritstone, and using medicinally, if it be required, the calcareous water.

The compound word mountain-limestone suggests another advantage possessed by the situation of Buxton. It is considerably elevated, its height above the level of the sea being more than a thousand feet. The only survey of the elevation of this district, the particulars of which I have been able to learn, was that made for the High Peak Railway. At the point where this railway passes nearest to Buxton, which may be at a distance of little more than a mile and a half, the elevation of the railway is 1254^ feet above the level of the sea. There is a gradual ascent from

Buxton to this point, of 225 feet; which shows the exact elevation of the lower part of the town above the level of the sea to be 1,0291 feet. The mean density of the air is therefore materially less than it is in the generality of situations : so much so, that, according to Mr. Whitehurst, “ the column of quicksilver in the barometer-tube is always an inch lower at Buxton than at Derby, at the same time and under similar circumstances.” All mountain districts are physically subjected to showery weather ; yet, from its altitude, and from the absorbent nature of the superficial strata, the air of Buxton is singularly dry, and singularly free from fogs, or mists, or the lesser degrees of moisture. The surface of the country is dry within a very few hours after the cessation of the heaviest rains.

Buxton has had to contend against the reputation of being a very cold place. That this is in some degree true must be admitted ; but it should be known, that the essential dryness of the air greatly subtracts from the effect of the absolute lowness of its temperature. Dr. Kilgour says, that “ cold moist air, compared with cold dry air abstracts caloric from the body in the ratio of 330 to 80 or more than four times as rapidly. In other words, the chilling effect of moist air is four times greater than that of dry air ; and therefore

BUXTON WATERS.

the absolute lowness of temperature at Buxton, compared with the temperature of less elevated districts, is often fully, if not more than compensated for, by the dryness of its atmosphere. But I apprehend that the mean temperature of Buxton has undergone a very considerable alteration within these few years : that its winters are milder, and its mean temperature higher.

There is always a look of coldness in a country, much of which has been enclosed in the life-time of the present generation, in respect to which the most absurd ideas were not very long ago entertained ; in which it was thought to be a folly to plant hedge-rows, the notion being that they would not grow ; which, till within the last forty years, had few trees near it ; and the fields of which are even now, for the most part, divided by dry or unmortared stone walls. But we are warranted in believing, that these hills were once covered with luxuriant woods and almost endless forests. W e know that within these thirty years, about two hundred and fifty acres have been covered with plantations, within the short distance of three miles around Buxton ; that hedge-rows, unsurpassed by any in England, are now to be found skirting the town ; that the plantations are, in everj^ instance, thriving most luxuriantly, that many of them already form beautiful objects, and even give a degree of richness to the landscape ; .and we know how very materially plantations on so extensive a scale must contribute to shelter a country, and improve its climate. I think it may most justifiably be asserted, that Buxton no longer deserves much of the opprobrium on account of its coldness, which at one time it doubtless merited, that its climate must have been materially improved, and that this will go on improving every year, until, at no very distant time, it will have a climate equalled in mildness by few localities, if by any, that are placed at a similar elevation above the level of the sea ; while it will be well wooded, and well sheltered, and deserve the praise of being almost unequalled in the grandeur and magnificence of its mountain scenery.