FIFTEEN centuries before Coca-Cola and Pepsi began competing over the bottled water industry, the undisputed market leader was the Catholic Church. Pilgrims were the customers, drawn to holy wells by reports of cures for everything from bellyaches to madness.
As James Salzman relates in Drinking Water, there was often some truth to the hype as certain waters naturally amassed medicinal minerals including bicarbonate and lithium from the earth. “The precise composition of the water depends on the local geology,” Salzman writes, “and, it turns out, so does the water’s therapeutic value.”
The scope of Salzman’s book is impressive, encompassing everything…
