For many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, humans in virtually every culture have noticed the apparent medicinal affects of certain spring waters.  Perhaps the best- known example of this in North America are the numerous springs surrounding Saratoga, New York.
  Native Americans of the Mohawk Nation??Saratoga? being a Mohawk word?considered these springs medicinal.  In 1767, some Mohawk tribesmen brought a gentleman named Sir William Johnson to the springs to cure a leg wound suffered during the French and Indian War.
Apparently the treatment was successful, and the springs began to acquire a reputation for their curative powers.  Even in the context of modern medicine, some of these observed affects are plausible.
Some of the springs, for example, produce high-bicarbonate waters that can alleviate acid-induced stomach upset.  Other springs produce magnesium sulfate waters that are an effective laxative.  Most famously, Congress Springs near Saratoga produces water containing iodine that can reduce the size of simple goiters.  Because of these observed medicinal properties, Saratoga Springs waters have been bottled and sold since at least since 1820.  Chemical analyses of these spring waters, beginning in 1819, were performed specifically to investigate the cause of these mysterious and very useful medicinal properties.  The beginnings of chemical hydrogeology as a scientific discipline, therefore, are inseparable from the practice of bottling and selling water.