71
Aquæ Solis Iuly 21. 1723. From the top of the Southern hill.
Stukeley del.
Cl. Richardo Mead M.D. tab. d.d. Ws. Stukeley.
I observe the whole country hereabouts is a rock of good lime-stone, which is the minera of the water’s heat and virtue: but how that comes to be calcined; by what refined chymistry of Nature sulphur and steel are mixed with it; by what means it acquires and conserves with so much constancy this equable and mighty focus, together with the reason of fountains in general; I profess, in my sentiments, is one of the great arcana in philosophy hitherto inscrutable.
Behind the southern wall of the King’s Bath is a lesser square, called the Queen’s Bath, with a tabernacle of four pillars in the midst: this is of more temperate warmth, as deriving its water at second-hand from the other. There are likewise pumps and pumping-rooms, for pouring hot streams on any part of the body; which in many cases is very useful, to dissolve sizy concretions about the joints and the like, and recovers the natural elasticity in the relaxed fibres of the solids. The area before this bath and front of the cathedral, is in the centre of the pentagon, upon which the city is formed. Why the Romans made it of this unusual figure, I cannot tell: nothing appears from the manner of the ground and situation; but I observe the same of Aix in France. One would be apt to suspect they had a regard to the sacred symbol and mystical character of medicine, which in ancient times was thought of no inconsiderable virtue: this is a pentagonal figure, formed from a triple triangle, called by the name of Hygeia, because to be resolved into the Greek letters that compose the word. The Pythagoreans used it among their disciples as a mystical symbol, denoting health; and the cabalistic Jews and Arabians had the same fancy: it is the pentalpha, or pentagrammon, among the Egyptians; the mark of prosperity. Antiochus Soter, going to fight against the Galatians, was advised in a dream to bear this sign upon his banner; whence he obtained a signal victory. This would make one believe a physician had a hand in projecting this city. Dr. Musgrave thinks it was Scribonius, who accompanied Claudius hither.
In the south-west part of the town are two other baths, not to be disregarded: for in any other place who would not purchase them at the greatest price? The Hot bath is a small parallelogram, not much inferior in heat to the King’s bath: it has a stone tabernacle of four pillars in the middle. The Cross bath, near it, is triangular, and had a cross in the middle; which now is a very handsome work, in marble, of three Corinthian pillars, erected by the lord Milford, in memory of king James the Second’s queen conceiving, as it is said, after the use thereof. Hard by is an hospital built and endowed by a bishop of this see. The water in these two places rises near to the level of the streets, because I suppose in this part of the town the earth is not so much heightened. On the south side of the cathedral are some parts of the abbey left, and the gate-house belonging to it. Not long ago, by money contributed, they made a cold bath, at a spring beyond the bridge, that nothing of this sort might be wanting for the benefit of the infirm.