Dr Linden and the Miracle Waters of Llandrindod Wells
It’s easy to forget how bizarre history can be, however when you’re in a museum you occasionally come across something that brings this to a sharp focus!
In this case it’s unassuming, 300-page medical-textbook from the 1750s, with the rather rambling title of “A Treatise on the three Medical Mineral Waters at Llandrindod, in Radnorʃhire, South Wales with some Remarks on Mineral and Foʃʃil Mixtures, in their Native Veins and Beds; at leaʃt as far as reʃpects Their Influence on Water.” by Diederick Wessel Linden.
Within its pages is a fascinating look into one of the stranger chapters in Powys’s history and British medical history as a whole, along with a some rather amusing insights into the mind of the books rather eccentric author.
Medicine and the 18th century Spa towns
During the 18th century most doctors believed all illness was caused imbalances in the “four humours” (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) within the body. Most doctors of the time would recommend drinking or bathing in “Medicinal Mineral Water”, combined with bloodletting and peculiar diets, to “balance the humours” and cure diseases.
Spa towns, built around or near springs or wells, saw a boom in popularity during this period because of these beliefs, as the sick, injured or those just seeking better health would travel to them to “take the waters” to help heal whatever ailed them. As part of this belief, many doctors thought that different mineral compositions dissolved within medicinal water would better treat different illnesses or injuries.
With three distinct “medicinal mineral waters” (the rock, pump and “stinking sulphur” water) arising from three springs around the town, each of which were thought to “cure” different diseases, Llandrindod Wells was a perfect destination for doctors and their patients alike.
By D.W. Lindens time Llandrindod already had a reputation for “miracle cures” and a thriving, if rather unscrupulous, spa industry. Some of these Spas, according to Linden, would recommend patients drink excessive amounts of “medicinal water” (as much as 40 pints of a day) to cure themselves, sometimes with fatal consequences.
At the behest of a large number of patrons, our Dr Linden, a German doctor who had done work analysing similar spa-waters around London, visited Llandrindod, back in the 1750’s to investigate these claims and to make a few claims of his own.
The Miracle Waters
In the book Linden creates quite a window into Llandrindod Wells spa-town history, detailing the three different kinds of water found here: the Rock water, the Pump water and the foul-smelling Sulphur water. Like many other doctors of the time Linden believed each of these waters had different healing properties and he meticulously outlines how to “properly prepare” the medicinal water and what diseases they can “cure” within his book.
To the modern eye these “cures” are bizarre to outright dangerous, and include drinking the Pump water in spoonfuls while bleeding a patient to “make the blood run more briskly”; bathing in the stinking sulphur water to cure rabies and insanity; drinking the rock water, inducing vomiting and eating a meat-only diet to cure scurvy (a disease caused by not-eating fruit and vegetables); and using water to “purify the blood” to help treat diseases like leprosy and to help cure “diseases of the fair sex”.
While we know today how ineffective to potentially fatal some of Lindens proposed treatments can be, Linden himself is full of praises for Llandrindod wells and its water, describing the air as “Exceeding heathy, and ʃuitable to moʃt Conʃtitutions” and going into extensive detail about the many successes his treatments have had.
D.W. Linden and the locals
Linden is far less complimentary of the towns locals and of contemporary doctors and scientists. Throughout his “medical textbook” Linden has penned a number of passive-aggressive asides and snide remarks about the locals, spa-owners and other scientists. This ranges from a distain for French naturalists who proposed “coal is made from wood, buried and embalmed”*; to frustration at the locals for criticising him for “bringing the Principles of Coal-mines into their darling Fountain” and not giving him credit for finding coal; to righteous anger at the local Spa’s and the fatal consequences some of their “miracle treatments” had on their patents.
Along with his various quarrels, Linden also recorded some of the personal stories and local history of the people who lived in Llandrindod, including the story of Mrs. Jenkins the woman who discovered the “stinking black water” (sulphur water) spring, who searched for a sulphur spring to help cure her daughters ulcerated Head, brought on by a fever.
*Said French Naturalists were much closer to the real way in which coal is formed (the crushing of buried plants over millions and millions of years) than Linden was who seemed to believe coal is spontaneously generated by brine and ironstone “consider that Coal, moʃt commonly, has and Iron-ʃtone near it; that when the coal is work’d out, and the pillars taken away, the Free-ʃtone will cloʃe the vacuities; and the iron stone that is left will be, within the age and memory of a Man turned into good coal again”.
The conclusion
When looking through old medical textbooks and spa-town brochures, you don’t expect to find stories of Spas killing patients with their “miracle water”, an argument about how coal is formed, or a tale of a local mother looking for a cure for their sick child. However, that is part of the fun of museum work, even something as apparently boring as a “A Treatise on the three Medical Mineral Waters at Llandrindod” can be full of surprises.
As we continue to develop the Radnorshire museums collections and displays, who knows what other bizarre bits of Powys history will be uncovered, and what other rabbit holes other apparently non-descript objects will send us down.
