Taking the waters in Banff, Alberta

Such spirituality eluded the Mc Cardell brothers. Instead, they envisioned making their fortunes. Why not lay claim to the land, build a pool enclosure, and charge visitors for the luxury? They knew Europeans had been flocking to spas for centuries to "take the waters" and treat everything from infertility to rheumatism and paralysis. People even drank the waters and bottling businesses prospered. According to Dr. William A. Frosch at Weill Cornell Medical College, famous people have flocked to spas for centuries: Michelangelo claimed a kidney stone was broken up by the Italian waters at Fiuggi and the 19th century explorer and evolutionary biologist, Charles Darwin, took the waters for dyspepsia (which was defined, at the time, as physical weakness, loss of appetite and depression, morbid despondency and gloom).1 In his diary, Darwin noted, that the waters had "an astonishingly renovating action on my health." He assured a friend that, "I feel certain that the water cure is no quackery."1 Not only did tourists soak in the spring water, they drank it, too. Bob Elliott, acting operations manager at Banff Upper Hot Springs, said, "Local bars sold bottled hot springs water as a tonic and cure for hangovers. Banff's mineral water was bottled and sold as 'Lithia water' for a short time until the medical experts realized that one of the active ingredients found naturally in the hot springs, Lithium, was addictive. This ended the bottling and consumption, by drinking, of Banff's mineral springs."