Collodion.
Pyroxylin was discovered by Schönbein in 1847, and the next year an American medical student at Boston, Massachussets, described in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences his experiments showing the use that could be made of this substance in surgery when dissolved in ether and alcohol. By painting it on a band of leather one inch wide and attaching this to the hand, he caused the band to adhere so firmly that it could not be detached by a weight of twenty pounds.
Epsom Salts.
The medicinal value of the Epsom springs was discovered, it is believed, towards the end of the sixteenth century, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. According to a local tradition the particular spring which became so famous was not used for any purpose until one very dry summer, when the farmer on whose land it existed bethought him to dig the ground round about the spring, so as to make a pond for his cattle to drink from. Having done this he found that the animals would not touch the water, and on tasting it himself he appreciated their objection to it. The peculiar merits of the water becoming known, certain London physicians sent patients to Epsom to drink it, and it proved especially useful in the cases of some who suffered with old ulcers. Apparently the sores were washed with it. The name of the farmer who contributed this important item to medical history was Henry Wicker or Wickes.
In 1621 the owner of the estate where the spring had been found walled in the well, and erected a shed for the convenience of the sick visitors, who were then resorting to Epsom in increasing numbers. By 1640 the Epsom Spa had become famous. The third Lord North, who published a book called the Forest of Varieties in 1645, claimed to have been the first to have made known the virtues of both the Epsom and the Tonbridge waters to the King’s sick subjects, “the journey to the German Spa being too expensive and inconvenient to sick persons, and great sums of money being thereby carried out of the kingdom.”
After the Restoration Epsom became a fashionable watering-place. Before 1700 a ball-room had been built, and a promenade laid out; a number of new inns and boarding-houses had been opened; sedan-chairs and hackney coaches crowded the streets; and sports and play of all kinds were provided. Pepys mentions visits to Epsom more than once in his Diary, and Charles II and some of his favourites were there occasionally. The town reached its zenith of gaiety in the reign of Queen Anne, who with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, frequently drove from Windsor to Epsom to drink the waters.
An apothecary living at Epsom in those times, and who had prospered abundantly from the influx of visitors, is alleged to have done much to check the hopeful prospects of the Surrey village. Much wanted more, and Mr. Levingstern, the practitioner referred to, thought he saw his way to a large fortune. He found another spring about half a mile from the Old Wells, bought the land on which it was situated, built on it a large assembly room for music, dancing, and gambling, and provided a multitude of attractions, including games, fashion shops, and other luxuries. At first he drew the crowds away from the Old Wells. But his Epsom water did not give satisfaction. For some reason it brought the remedial fame of the springs generally into disrepute. Then Levingstern bought the lease of the Old Wells, and, unwisely it may be thought, shut them up altogether. The glory of Epsom had departed, and though several efforts were made subsequently to tempt society back to it, they were invariably unsuccessful. The building at the Old Wells was pulled down in 1802, and a private house built on the site. This house is called The Wells, and the original well is still to be seen in the garden. The very site of Mr. Levingstern’s “New Wells” is now doubtful. He died in 1827.
In 1695 Nehemiah Grew, physician, and secretary of the Royal Society, wrote a treatise “On the Bitter Cathartic Salt in the Epsom Water.” Dr. Grew names 1620 as about the date when the medicinal spring was discovered at Epsom by a countryman, and he says that for about ten years the countrypeople only used it to wash external ulcers. He relates that it was Lord Dudley North, who apparently lived near by, who first began to take it as a medicine. He had been in the habit of visiting the German spas, as he “laboured under a melancholy disposition.” He used it, we are told, with abundant success, and regarded it as a medicine sent from heaven. Among those whom he induced to take the Epsom waters were Maria de Medicis, the mother of the wife of Charles I, Lord Goring, the Earl of Norwich, and many other persons of quality. These having shown the way, the physicians of London began to recommend the waters, and then, Dr. Grew tells us, the place got crowded, as many as 2,000 persons having taken the water in a single day.
