In the late 17th century "Dr. Nooth's Apparatus" for producing soda water was found in almost every well-to-do English household. It wasn’t the tingly bubbles that people were after, it was health! Naturally carbonated waters had long been believed to be healthy and it was common for people suffering from kidney stones, arthritis and "lack of vigor" to flock to spas to “partake of the waters.” But if you couldn't get to the source, you were out of luck. Until Joseph Priestley came along.
Priestley, who of course is best known as the discoverer of oxygen, lived next to a brewery and was intrigued by the bubbles of carbon dioxide he saw rising in beer. This gave him the idea of artificially carbonating water. Joseph Black had already shown that carbon dioxide, or "fixed air" as it was called, could be produced by reacting chalk (calcium carbonate) with sulfuric acid. Priestley designed a clever apparatus which linked a glass vessel in which the reagents were mixed to a pig bladder, which in turn was connected to a tube that led into a water-filled bottle that sat inverted in a basin of water. The gas was generated, filled the bladder, which was then squeezed to pump pressurized gas through the water. By this method, enough of the gas dissolved to produce an acceptable bubbly beverage. Salts such as sodium carbonate or sodium tartarate could be added to produce "mineral water."
John Nooth, a Scottish physician, wondered why the curative properties of Priestley's water had not been extensively investigated. He proposed an answer. The water, Nooth said, had a urinous flavor which people disliked. So he got around the problem by designing a totally glass apparatus to carbonate water. Priestley did not take the criticism of his water well. He maintained that neither he, nor anyone he ever offered the water to had ever noted a urine smell or flavor. If Dr. Nooth had found his water tainted, Priestley suggested, it must have been because one of his servants had played a cruel trick and urinated into it. Priestley of course had no foundation for this accusation and eventually gave up his attack on Nooth and accepted the Nooth Apparatus as superior to his own. Eventually, Jacob Schweppe, a Swiss inventor scaled up the apparatus and made carbonated water available to all. The supposed health benefits of such waters are still debated today. The financial benefits are not. The whole soda pop industry is of course based on artificially carbonated water.