As for the water, which is said to have effected so many surprising cures, I have drank it once, and the first draught has cured me of all desire to repeat the medicine.--Some people say it smells of rotten eggs, and others compare it to the scourings of a foul gun.--It is generally supposed to be strongly impregnated with sulphur; and Dr Shaw, in his book upon mineral water, says, he has seen flakes of sulphur floating in the well--Pace tanti viri; I, for my part, have never observed any thing like sulphur, either in or about the well, neither do I find that any brimstone has ever been extracted from the water. As for the smell, if I may be allowed to judge from my own organs, it is exactly that of bilge-water; and the saline taste of it seems to declare that it is nothing else than salt water putrified in the bowels of the earth. I was obliged to hold my nose with one hand, while I advanced the glass to my mouth with the other; and after I had made shift to swallow it, my stomach could hardly retain what it had received.--The only effects it produced were sickness, griping, and insurmountable disgust.--I can hardly mention it without puking.--The world is strangely misled by the affectation of singularity. I cannot help suspecting, that this water owes its reputation in a great measure to its being so strikingly offensive.--On the same kind of analogy, a German doctor has introduced hemlock and other poisons, as specifics, into the materia medica.--I am persuaded, that all the cures ascribed to the Harrigate water, would have been as efficaciously, and infinitely more agreeably performed, by the internal and external use of seawater. Sure I am, this last is much less nauseous to the taste and smell, and much more gentle in its operation as a purge, as well as more extensive in its medical qualities.