Brighton as a health resort / by Alfred Haviland.

  • Haviland, Alfred, -1903.
Date:
[1882]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brighton as a health resort / by Alfred Haviland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The water has been submitted to several analyses, Pelham, and Marcet (1805), Henderson, Daniell, Graham, Wanklyn, and others, and all agree that it is a chalybeate that may be favourably compared with the most celebrated mineral waters, both at home and abroad. The most notable analysis was that made by the late Professor Graham, F.R.S., lecturer on chemistry at University College, London, and Master of the Mint. This accurate and painstaking chemist described the water of this spring in 1850 as the Brighton (Wick) Natural Chalybeate Spa, and said that it belongs to the class of saline clialybeates, aud that the solid extracts of one imperial gallon of 70,000 grains were found to be as follows:— Carbonate of Iron 3-<325 Sulphate of Magnesia 7-525 Sulphate of Soda 1P000 Chloride of Sodium, &c. 12‘250 Sulphate of Lime 1L175 Chloride of Calcium 11-550 02,825 grains. A later analysis by Professor Wanklyn, taken October, 1881, shows the following result:— Silica 2‘5 Protoxide of Iron ; 6'0 Sulphate of Lime 29-9 Sulphate of Magnesia 6-4 Chloride of Sodium 16-0 60-8 grains. This chemist further adds that the iron exists as a ferrous salt, a fact which is of considerable importance. He considers that the ferrous salt may be fairly given as a Carbonate, as Graham stated, and that the Silica exists in a soluble free state. The water is a very strong chalybeate, and there can be no doubt in the mind of any medical man acquainted with mineral waters that this “ Natural Chalybeate Spa” is of extreme value to such a Health Resort as Brighton, and well adapted for all those cases requiring the judicious administration of iron, and especially those cases where difficulty is found in digesting some of the medicinal preparations. I hope it may prove a true fountain of health to all who resort to it, and that it may attract to Brighton and Hove many who too frequently seek abroad that which Nature has provided for them at home. The present proprietor has done much to improve the natural beauties of this favoured spot, and has carefully provided for the comfort and recrea- tion of invalids and others frequenting St. Ann’s Well and Wild Garden. Vital Statistics. The population in 1881 of the Parliamentary Borough amounted to 128,382. Deducting for Hove 20,789, and West Preston 90, the Municipal Borough comprised Brighton 99,049 and East Preston 8,454, making together 107,503. The houses in the Parliamentary Borough wore 22,201, having increased since 1871 by 4,824, a rapid growth which has to be provided for. Every Health Resort may be regarded as a Hospital on a large scale, for it is visited and dwelt in by many strangers for the sake of being cured or relieved of their various ailments. We must, therefore, expect that the vital statistics of such places would differ somewhat from those of the districts in which they are situated. Strangers are attracted to certain Health Resorts by a variety of circumstances; some because they are easily accessible from their homes ; others on account of certain diseases to which they are prone being rare among the indigenous populations; others because relief and cure, in cases similar to their own, have followed residence in particular localities having certain peculiarities of site, soil, and climate. Some are attracted by the medical men with a reputation for success in the treatment of certain diseases ; not a few are sent by their medical advisers at the end of the London season to seek at these places the relief which their prescriptions have failed to give. From whatever cause these Health Resorts are frequented, certain it is that many persons go there to die, whilst others who go there to prolong life too frequently shorten it, through the want of knowledge of their advisers in sending them. Some large Health Resorts have their vital statistics vitiated by the deaths which take place in their Hospitals, and all of them are subject to having their death-rate augmented by the reckless importation of infectious diseases in convalescent stages. These find their way to laundries and are thence rapidly spread among the poorer classes living in the comparatively unventilated parts of the town. These are some of the causes why the mortuary returns of Health Resorts cannot always be taken as tests of their natural healthiness as sites. It may be safely inferred in their favour that if certain typical causes of death are below the general average of the country, notwithstanding all these disturbing influences, the Resort, if not favorable to the cure of such diseases, is not obnoxious to those suffering from them. It is then always desirable to study the prevalent diseases of the neighbouring districts, for the geography of diseases tells us that diseases have natural groupings, which in many cases will teach us what would obtain in given towns but for the special social causes which influence the death returns.