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SUMMARY:To drink or not to drink: understanding 'types' of water in sevent
 eenth-century England - Daniel Gettings (University of Warwick)
DTSTART:20231023T120000Z
DTEND:20231023T130000Z
UID:TALK207052@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tom Banbury
DESCRIPTION:'Water is not all alike in goodness\; but much difference ther
 e is in this and that sort\; which we may distinguish thus.' In his health
  treatise of 1683\, Dr Everard Maynwaringe succinctly expressed a concept 
 that occurred frequently across seventeenth-century literature on water\, 
 that there were many 'types' or 'sorts' to distinguish between. Seventeent
 h-century authors laboured to produce hierarchies of 'waters'\, ranking th
 em from best to worst based on environmental origins and justifying their 
 decisions through extensive prose. This paper takes this substantial liter
 ature and seeks to explore what it can tell us about water's place in earl
 y modern lives and\, particularly\, its status as a drink\, a subject on w
 hich early modern authors had very strong\, but divided opinions. Through 
 examination of the wide variety of knowledge drawn upon by authors to just
 ify their positions as well as the sharing and adapting of ideas across th
 is literature\, the paper will explore understandings of water while demon
 strating the complex space it occupied in this period as a substance servi
 ng simultaneously as a scientific subject\, a consumable beverage\, and a 
 facet of daily labour.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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