View Item
John Powell, Nature’s Triumphs over Nature’s Infirmities: Or, A Discourse of a Mineral Water Lately found out near the Town of Carlow, Tryed and Approved of (Dublin, 1705).
This is a proposal for the development of a spa resort around a natural spring in the parish of Killeshin in County Laois, about 85 kilometres south west of Dublin.
The author, John Powell, suggested the water had such remarkable medical properties that it ‘will soon Silence the Fame of all others’, including the newly fashionable spa town of Tunbridge Wells in Kent in southern England.
Powell claimed the water from Killeshin was useful in treating general problems with appetite, digestion and the lungs, but that it was also very effective in the treatment of specific ailments such as diarrhoea, dysentery, ‘Piss-Pot Dropsy’ (diabetes), gonorrhea and other diseases ‘contracted by Carnal Copulation with a woman’.
Powell’s proposal came to nothing.
Citation:
John Powell, Nature’s Triumphs over Nature’s Infirmities: Or, A Discourse of a Mineral Water Lately found out near the Town of Carlow, Tryed and Approved of (Dublin, 1705).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 6, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/477
Connect On Social
