Spadacrene Anglica

Spadacrene Anglica

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Title: Spadacrene Anglica The English Spa Fountain
Author: Edmund Deane
Commentator: James Rutherford and 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 BY JAMES RUTHERFORD,
L.R.C.P. ED.
AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY ALEX. BUTLER, M.B.
BRISTOL: JOHN WRIGHT & SONS LTD. LONDON: SIMPKIN,
MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD. 1922

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