"Taking the waters"--springs, wells, and spas.

[O]ne of the deepest and most enduring preoccupations, both of the sick and of the medical profession, from the baths of antiquity through to the Victorian deluge of “hydros,” has been water. . . . the pernicious potential of standing waters, humid vapors, excessive rainfall, pestilential miasmatic fogs, and subterranean aqueous abysses . . . the curative powers of water . . . engendering ferocious local disputes as to the desirable mineral constituents of particular healing springs, wells, streams, and spas. . .(1)