Page 14 - Pharmacy History 34 February 2008

Could we have dispensed with water?
Apart from under unusual circumstances, such as those caused by natural flooding as a result of unseasonable rain pharmacists today have little problem with water: they just turn the tap and there it is – water suitable for drinking and most dispensing purposes. Peter Homan, honorary secretary of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy, takes a look at a time when things were not so simple.
Water is the substance of life.
It can also terminate human life if
the life it supports causes diseases such as cholera or typhus. Up to and including the middle of the 19th Century sources of drinking water included distilled water, rainwater, well water, mineral springs, lakes, streams and rivers. It would have been unfortunate for the 18th or 19th Century apothecary, chemist and druggist or pharmacist if the water he used was killing off his clientele.
Physicians would sometimes write in their prescriptions the type of water that they required to be used. The two most common were aqua fontana (spring water) or aqua destillata (distilled water), but others included aqua communis (common or plain water), aqua puteana (well water) and aqua pura (filtered water).
Moreover, some physicians prescribed pills or powders with instructions to the patient to take them with ‘small beer’, a weak beer resulting from a second fermentation of the beer mash. This was slightly safer (and, perhaps, more palatable) than drinking water because the water used had been boiled before the brewing process.
Royal Doulton filter
The source
According to Pereira’s ‘Materia medica’ (1854), ‘besides rainwater some spring, well, and river waters are remarkable for their purity. The water of the Malvern springs is remarkable for its extreme purity. According to Sir Charles Scudamore’s analysis this water contains only about a third part of the solid matter found by Mr R. Phillips in Thames water taken at Chelsea.’
Pereira makes further comments about various waters. He noted that the purer the water the more it would be contaminated with lead from storage vessels and water pipes. Distilled water, however, had no action on lead provided air had been excluded. In addition, mineral water appeared to have a ‘protective action’ against lead poisoning that varied according to its contents.
However, it was not until 1885 that the British Pharmacopoeia stated: ‘In dispensing prescriptions, aqua should
be understood to mean distilled water.’ Aqua fontana was not to be used unless specifically ordered. For official preparations it said: ‘Natural water, the purest that can be obtained, cleared, if necessary by filtration;
free from odour, unusual taste, and visible impurity. To be used whenever “Water” is ordered in the British Pharmacopoeia.’ The monograph on distilled water describes its preparation as:
Take of water 10 gallons.
Distil from a copper still, connected with a block-tin worm; reject the first half-gallon, and preserve the next eight gallons.
In The art of dispensing (1895) it is suggested that the water should be boiled before use to drive off any absorbed carbon dioxide which might precipitate salts from medicinal ingredients. The water should be freshly prepared and each five gallons (22L) should have 10 grains (600mg) of potassium permanganate and
one drachm (3.5ml) of sulphuric acid added to destroy any organic matter that might contaminate it.
According to Pereira, rainwater
was suspect. It was not too pure in industrial towns – having passed through heavily polluted atmosphere – and could easily be contaminated with lead via gutters, gulleys and drainpipes. Collection of rainwater for dispensing should be collected at a distance from the town. Melted snow from the countryside was acceptable.
Well water was similar to spring or mineral water. It was recommended that the well should be at least 20m deep, have an impervious lining and was not situated less than 100m from a cesspool. It also required a well- sealed cover on a raised brick wall and a pump – a bucket on a rope is
a romantic image but was an easy source of contamination unless kept scrupulously clean.
14 Pharmacy History Australia
volume 4 no 35 September 2008