Here's an advertisement I found in the front of The Useful Family Herbal by John Hill, M.D., printed in 1770. Mineral Waters! If you're interested in any of these esoteric waters, you can read a contemporary account, The Methodical Synopsis Of Mineral Waters, by John Rutty, M.D. You can also read "Dr. Russel's Dissertation on the Use of the Sea-Water, with Dr. Speed's Commentary" that's mentioned in the ad. A few of the waters are still bottled and sold.
Interestingly, William Owen, bookseller and mineral water salesman, was also the publisher of Mr Hill's book in which this advertisement appears. This is the only time I can recall a publisher of that era advertising his side business in one of his own publications.
Further research into William Owen reveals that he was charged with libel against the House of Commons and the King's Bench in 1752, for printing a pamphlet which the attorney-general called "wicked, false, scandalous, seditious, and malicious libel".
An account of two trials, including William Owen's trial, was published in 1765 by J. Almon. The Owen section of the pamphlet begins with this:
and to what, you may ask, does that asterisk refer? To this, at the bottom of the page:
Well played. A toast, to Mr William Owen, with the mineral water of your choice.
14 comments:
Thank you for reaching back into the past and bringing it into the present, perhaps to last forever.
Poland Spring Original FTW!
That's a trippy-looking cover on Ben Franklin's Autobio.
My dad was an early adapter SCUBA diver in and around the Madison area, begining in the late 1950s. He used to find all kinds of things on lake bottoms like boat anchors, jetsam, and lots of trash people threw overboard or into the lake. One of the bottles he found in Lake Mendota (it's actually a ceramic flask) is stamped (in the kiln-fired clay):
Selzerwasser
Leonhardquelle
Brunnen = Verwaltung
Gross=Karben.Hessen
It's an old German mineral water flask. A Google search told me that the springs are still producing water: link, though under a slightly different name.
The flask is undated. I have no clue how that bottle ended up on the bottom of Lake Mendota. I have it now.
I think somebody threw it at a guy trying to take a Daguerreotype of his cocker spaniel taking a dump.
Water gives me a hangover.
Here's some fun SCIENCE-Y stuff, Helio-Astronomical Devision:
Gargantuan Explosion Rips Open a Canyon of Fire on the Sun
Fun animation stuff, too.
I wish I could afford to mix my mineral water with some gin and lime juice right about now.
The account of the trial of John Peter Zenger, attached to that of Mr. William Owen, ought to be read by anyone concerned today in the history of American liberty.
IN an age of persecution, when few people dare to write, and fewer still to print, these Trials ought to be universally read by every True Friend To English Liberty ; who will here see two of the most noble stands which have been made since the Revolution, in Defence of Constitutional Freedom.
American Liberty - now an oxymoron.
Chick, do you have any idea of the age of the container?
You should post a pic of it.
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