Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/195

 Rh contamination, so peculiarly characterising the water of St. Ann's and the Holy Well.

Malvern Waters.—The waters of St. Ann's Well, at Great Malvern, and of the Holy Well, in the parish of Hanley Castle, have long been celebrated for their medical virtues. Mention is made of these springs in Bannister's Breviary of the Eyes, printed 1622. And in the Addenda to Camden's Britannia is the following: "Near the division (betwixt Worcestershire and Herefordshire) is a spring, that has long been famed for the virtue of healing eyes, and other parts of the head, therefore called Eye Well. And besides this, is another spring called Holy Well, hitherto much resorted to for curing all scorbutic humours, and external ulcers, by bathing and drinking of the Waters." In 1756, Dr. J. Wall, of Worcester, wrote an account of the latter spring, containing several cases in which it had been highly beneficial. A third edition of this treatise was published in 1763. Dr. Wilson Philip afterwards published an analysis of the waters of each of these wells; and, subsequently, Dr. M. Wall. The publication of the latter contains seventy-six cases, some of them, certainly, very extraordinary ones, in which the internal and external use of the Malvern waters was eminently beneficial. "The cases I shall mention," he observes, "are such only as I have attended myself, and, therefore, I will be answerable for their veracity. The Holy Well water appears, from every day's experience, to be possessed of all the virtues attributed to it, and to be serviceable in scrofulous cases, old ulcers and fistulas, obstructed glands, disorders of the eyes