A letter to the Honourable the Lord Provost, magistrates, and councillors of Glasgow, on the public wells.

Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Honourable the Lord Provost, magistrates, and councillors of Glasgow, on the public wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    “ Let no presuming impious railer tax Creative wisdom,—as if aught was form’d In vain, or not for admirable ends. Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce His works unwise, of which the smallest part Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind ? As if, upon a full-proportion’d dome On swelling columns heav’d, the pride of art! A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads An inch around, with blind presumption bold Should dare to tax the structure of the whole. And lives the man, whose universal eye Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things, Mark’d the dependance so with firm accord, As with unfalt’ring accent to conclude That this availeth nought?” But the Doctor says, “ excess,” “ quantity.” It is at once granted that the well-waters of Glasgow contain a con- siderable proportion of lime salts; but I humbly submit that the quantity is not extraordinary or “ excessive,” and that the water is not rendered thereby insalubrious or unfit for drinking. It is a pity, for the sake of science, that the Doctor did not condescend to state what he considers to be the precise limit of “ excess.” Are we in a worse position than the inhabitants of other populous towns ? Mr. Lewis Thompson tells us that the wells in the neighbourhood of Paris are saturated with sulphate of lime, holding in solution 110 grains per gallon, (which are equal to 45,^ grains of “ lime,”) besides the lime which exists as carbonate. These waters are freely used as a beverage by the inhabitants. The total quantity of lime in our well-waters, according to Dr. R. D. Thomson, is about 15 grains per gallon. How awfully afflicted with gravel and stone the inhabitants around Paris ought to be, according to the reasoning of the Doctor; and yet Mr. Lewis Thompson tells us, “during a residence of some years in these parts, I have never seen or heard of any disease peculiar to the inhabitants.” Again: look at the Thames water. Richard Phillips, Esq., in his evidence before a select committee of the House of Lords in 1840, states that Thames water contains about 17