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Title: Spadacrene Anglica

The English Spa Fountain

Author: Edmund Deane

Commentator: James Rutherford

Alex. Butler

Release Date: August 2, 2005 [EBook #16417]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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SPADACRENE ANGLICA.

OR,

The English Spa Fountain.

BY EDMUND DEANE, M.D. OXON.

The First Work on the Waters of Harrogate.

REPRINTED WITH INTRODUCTION

JAMES RUTHERFORD, L.R.C.P. ED.

AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

ALEX. BUTLER, M.B.

BRISTOL: JOHN WRIGHT & SONS LTD. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,

HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD. 1922

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF "SPADACRENE ANGLICA."

Spadacrene Anglica.

THE EPISTLE

The English Spaw.

CHAP. 1.

CHAP. 2.

CHAP. 3.

CHAP. 4.

CHAP. 5.

CHAP. 6.

CHAP. 7.

CHAP. 8.

CHAP. 9.

CHAP. 10.

CHAP. 11.

CHAP. 12.

CHAP. 13.

CHAP. 14.

CHAP. 15.

CHAP. 16.

INTRODUCTION.

If the Author of "Spadacrene Anglica" could see our modern Harrogate, for whose existence

he is to no small extent responsible, he would be justly entitled to consider his labours as well

spent, however surprised he might be at the change that had taken place in the village as he

knew it in the year 1626. For so was Harrogate in those years, a small scattered hamlet, part of

that great Royal Forest of Knaresborough, extending westward from the town of

Knaresborough for about 20 miles towards Bolton Abbey, with an average depth of about 8

miles from North to South, a Royal Forest, as Grainge in his History thereof premises, from

the year 1130 until 1775. Not only the change in the physical aspect of Harrogate would have

been noted by our author. Since his days, within a radius of a few miles, have been found over

80 mineral springs, whereby Harrogate is distinguished from all other European health

resorts. Not that the curative powers of these waters were altogether unknown before Edmund

Deane extolled the merits of the Tuewhit Well in "Spadacrene Anglica." Indeed, he would be

a bold man who would dogmatically lay down at what period the powers of these waters were

unknown. Thus, in mediæval times the waters of St. Mungo's and St. Robert's were accredited

with miraculous powers. The Tuewhit Well itself derives its name, according to some

authorities, from its association in pre-Roman times with the pagan God Teut.

"Spadacrene Anglica" was published by Dr. Edmund Deane, an eminent physician of York, in

the year 1626, and passed through three editions after his death. All these editions are very

scarce, and although there are copies of the four editions in the British Museum, there are

only two other copies known to exist. I was indeed fortunate, therefore, when some seventeen

years ago I picked up a copy in a well-known second-hand book shop in Harrogate. Now I am

reprinting it, not so much for its interest to my professional brethren as a quaint and learned

contribution to medical literature in the seventeenth century, but because it is the earliest and

most indispensable source of the history of the waters of Harrogate.

A careful study of it will correct a number of remarkable errors, which now pass current as

historical facts in connection with the rise into fame of Harrogate as our premier Spa. These

errors would never have arisen had there been a more free access to this very scarce book.

Most writers appear to have depended for their knowledge of its contents upon the summary

of it contained in Dr. Thomas Short's "History of Mineral Waters," published about a century

after the publication of "Spadacrene Anglica." In commenting on this and other works

abridged in his History, the learned author states:

"Some of them are very scarce and rare. Therefore, such as have them not, have here their

whole substance , and need not trouble themselves for the treatises." Unfortunately, they did

not have their "whole substance," and hence these errors.

"Spadacrene Anglica" deals mainly with the Tuewhit Well or the English Spa. It is not my

intention to discuss here either the history of its distinguished author or the early history of the

English Spa. This task has been kindly undertaken for me by my friend and colleague, Dr.

Alexander Butler, to whom I take this opportunity to express my grateful thanks for his very

suggestive contribution.

Suffice it for the purpose of this short introduction to state that the medicinal qualities of the

Tuewhit Well were discovered about fifty-five years prior to the publication of "Spadacrene

Anglica," the credit of the discovery being due to a certain Mr. William Slingsby, not to his

nephew, Sir William Slingsby as has been persistently but erroneously stated. The Tuewhit

Well was first designated "The English Spa" in or about the year 1596 by Timothy Bright,

M.D., sometime rector of both Methley and Barwick in Elmet, near Leeds, which goes far to

support the well established belief that the waters of the Tuewhit Well were the first to be

used internally for medicinal purposes in England. To-day the word Spa is, of course, a

general term for a health resort possessing mineral waters, but in the days of Dr. Timothy

Bright no such meaning attached to it; Spa was the celebrated German health resort, and one

can readily conceive with what patriotic enthusiasm Dr. Timothy Bright would proclaim the

Tuewhit Well as "The English Spa" when the medicinal properties of this Well were found to

resemble those of the two famous medicinal springs of Sauveniere and Pouhon at Spa.

"Spadacrene Anglica" (as already mentioned) was published in 1626. Later in the same year

appeared another work on Harrogate, entitled "News out of Yorkshire," by Michael Stanhope,

Esq. Further, the time of Mr. William Slingsby's birth has been traced back to between the

years 1525 and 1527. The year 1926 is therefore the tercentenary of the publication of Deane's

"Spadacrene Anglica," and Stanhope's "News out of Yorkshire," and may also be regarded as

the quatercentenary of the birth of Mr. William Slingsby. What a triple event for

commemoration!

In this edition of "Spadacrene Anglica" the original title-page and initial letters have been

artistically reproduced by the publishers; the text has not been modernized except in the case

of the old vowel forms I and U for the consonants J and V. Otherwise, the original spelling

and the use of capitals and italics have been retained. The long S has not been retained. With

these slight changes one cannot but admire the forceful English in which it is written, and the

clearness of the style of the author.

I am indebted to my daughter Dorothy for the sketch of the Tuewhit Well.

JAMES RUTHERFORD.

Saint Mungo,

12, York Road,

Harrogate, 1921.

Biographical Notes

Edmund Deane, M.D.

and others in relation to the Tuewhit Well, The English Spa .

BY ALEX. BUTLER, M.B.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

of Edmund Deane and others in relation to the English Spa.

The present reprint of "Spadacrene Anglica" should arouse a keen literary interest in its

author, Edmund Deane, and in the early history of Harrogate. As one who had the privilege of

reading the original edition of this work, belonging to Dr. Rutherford, I was struck by the

marked contrast between Deane's account of the history of the medicinal waters of Harrogate,

and that which is to be found in more recent writings on that subject.

These modern accounts cannot be better or more authoritatively exemplified than by taking a

short extract from the article "Harrogate" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica." [1]

"The principal chalybeate Springs are the Tewitt well called by Dr.

Bright, who wrote the first account of it, the English Spaw,

discovered by Captain William Slingsby of Bilton Hall, near the

close of the 16th. Century...."

This paragraph, as a statement of facts, accurately sets out what is to be found in more or less

detail in the accessible literature of to-day and will be referred to afterwards as the recognised

history of Harrogate. It has received the express or tacit sanction of the Corporation of

Harrogate and is embodied in its publications. Further a memorial has been erected to Sir

William Slingsby, the Captain William Slingsby of Bilton Hall referred to in the above

quotation, as the discoverer of the Tuewhit Well.

Notwithstanding the complete credence that has been given to this account for many years, I

think there can be no doubt that it is entirely erroneous, and that unmerited fame has been

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