This article was first published inThe Montreal Gazette.
Charles Darwin was one of the greatest thinkers of all time. However, thinking did not come easy to the father of the theory of evolution and natural selection. Throughout most of his adult life, Darwin was tormented by insomnia, palpitations, vomiting and flatulence. The doctors of the day had no relief to offer and in all probability, modern medicine would fare little better. Although posthumous diagnosis is always sketchy, Darwin’s symptoms suggest he may have been suffering from an insect-borne infection known as Chagas disease.
History records that the great naturalist’s first period of ill health was precipitated by a bug bite during a trip to South America. Today, we know that the infecting organism, a protozoan parasite, can be found in the bloodstream for years after initial exposure, slowly wreaking havoc and eventually causing heart disease. Indeed, Darwin succumbed to a heart attack in 1882. Did he calmly accept the doctors’ failure to provide relief from his affliction? No. Like many others of the day, he turned to alternative therapies, going in big for the “water cure.”
Darwin was a frequent visitor to “Dr. Lane’s delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park,” as he wrote in his autobiography. The delights included being plunged into cold baths and being wrapped in cold, wet towels. Such establishments were quite the rage in England at the time. People flocked to trendy spas such as Harrogate where sulphurous waters were deemed to have health benefits. Some upper-class women, however, got a surprise after a visit to Harrogate. They had been using bismuth carbonate to whiten their faces to distinguish themselves from the ruddy complexion of the working classes, and were shocked when hydrogen sulphide in the water combined with bismuth carbonate to form a precipitate of black bismuth sulphide on their skin.
Bathing was always part of “taking the waters,” but drinking the water also was seen as an integral part of the “Harrogate cure.” Those who could not afford to travel to Harrogate for the ritzy treatment had to be satisfied by drinking water that had been bottled at Harrogate since 1740.
Charles Dickens visited Harrogate in 1858, but was not impressed. “The queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading and dining,” he proclaimed. That dining included drinking four or five glasses of the sulphurous water every day despite its offensive smell. Dickens likely thought this was all crazy stuff. One wonders what he would have thought of drinking something literally called Crazy Water from a spring in Texas.
That story starts in 1877 when rancher James Lynch headed west with a herd of cattle from Denison, Texas, looking for a place to establish a farmstead. He didn’t have to venture far before finding a suitable piece of land, but the closest source of water was the Brazos River, which was miles away. Hauling water from the river was a challenging task and Lynch engaged a well digger who managed to locate an underground spring. Although the water looked grimy and smelled funny, the family had little choice and drank the water. Then something remarkable happened: Mrs. Lynch, who had been suffering terribly from arthritis, saw her pain vanish. The rest of the family also claimed they felt healthier after drinking, and word about the miraculous water quickly spread. As various health seekers came to partake of the water, Lynch recognized a business opportunity and drilled more wells, attracting more people. By 1881, the fame of the water had spread to such an extent that the town of Mineral Wells was founded, with Lynch as its mayor.
Other speculators also looked to cash in on the wonder water, including entrepreneur Billy Wiggins, who drilled yet another well. This one would put Mineral Wells on the map as a place, much like Harrogate, to where throngs would travel to “take the waters.” There was something special about Wiggins’s well, at least as the story goes. It was to this well that a “crazy woman” came every day to drink the water and ended up regaining her sanity. Wiggins was quick to capitalize on the likely apocryphal account and began to bottle the water, which he called Crazy Water. This helped Mineral Wells flourish with spas and hotels, including the elegant Crazy Water Hotel, that offered luxurious surroundings and health benefits. The only real benefit was to Wiggins’s bank account.
The Great Depression hit Mineral Wells especially hard. People couldn’t afford to travel and many of the spas closed, including the Crazy Water Hotel. Transporting the bottled water had become too expensive, but the Crazy Water Company hit on a new scheme. Since the water’s miraculous properties were attributed to its mineral content, why not just sell the minerals without the water? Crazy Water Crystals were born, with the small packages being much easier to distribute. Customers just had to add water to avail themselves of the benefits.
Crazy Water is still sold today in the U.S., although no claims are made for treating dementia. There has been speculation that there may have been something to the “crazy woman” saga due to lithium in the water, but while some natural springs in Texas really have water with significant amounts of lithium, Crazy Water has way too little to have any effect. Today, the advertising hype is that it “hydrates quickly because your body absorbs our Mother Nature-infused minerals more easily than synthetic ones (and) even helps your body detox.”
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the marketing is that Crazy Water comes in different “strengths,” with the bottles labelled as 1, 2, 3 or 4. These have different mineral content, depending on the depth of the spring from which they originate. No. 4 is said to be the most potent and only one or two glasses a day are recommended. It seems the strength refers to the mineral content, and indeed No. 4 has enough magnesium sulphate to act as a laxative. No. 1 has been filtered to remove all minerals, while 2 and 3 have mineral content similar to tap water.
The idea of marketing different strengths is pretty clever because, without saying so, it sends the message that the water has medicinal qualities. And how much do you have to shell out for Crazy Water? About $4 for a bottle. Some would say that is crazy.
