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MEDICAL HISTORY.

The discovery and early history of these springs, with the authors who have written upon their qualities, are equally indispensible in a treatise of this kind, and become the next subjects of inquiry. Water is so directly necessary to human life, that its use must have been coeval with human existence. As one of the four long considered elementary principles, air, earth, fire, and water, it is, from its peculiar qualities and variations the most susceptible to the senses, of any of these elements, and could not fail to attract the earliest attention which man bestowed upon surrounding objects. "There are few things," observes a recent writer, "endowed with more marvellous properties, or which are less studied and understood. The lover of rural nature is sensible of its charms, whether it murmurs in a brook, rolls in a foaming cataract, or expands into the silvery mirror of a lake. Hence the poet and the

painter have vied with each other, to celebrate these emanations of creative kindness. But higher and deeper thoughts, than any which external beauty can suggest, fill the mind that contemplates the internal constitution of this Protean liquid." No discredit, therefore, can attach to those who have considered that there was no species of remedy for the ills which humanity is heir to, so early brought into practice. It would be in vain, however, as some have attempted, to fix the period, as we have no records to shew, when mineral waters were first used medicinally. The sacred Scriptures are sufficiently explicit on this head. The waters of Marah* have occasioned some bitter disputes regarding the tree, or its effects, used to sweeten them, while the cure of the Assyrian ruler in the river Jordan, and the pool of Bethesda, lead us, in acknowledging the miracles, to consider likewise the natural means employed.

In the earliest medical records extant, Hippocrates has noticed the effect of water, and accurately defined its sensible properties, while the multitude, in all ages, and in all nations, have attributed peculiar healing powers to certain springs, and honoured them with the name, or placed them

* Exodus, xv. 23-26.

under the direct influence of some presiding deity or saint, long before that science arose, which enabled us to descriminate the justice, or dispute the title, of such lofty and occasionally unqualified pretensions.

The nature and principal variety of the Harrogate mineral waters hitherto discovered, have been long known to the profession, and their beneficial effects extensively experienced by the public. Nor have they attained their present celebrity by any of those adventitious circumstances, which, at one time caused similar springs to be generally resorted to, and in a few years leave them entirely deserted; for, with the exception of Bath, which has been celebrated as a watering place from the most remote period of our authentic history, and carries its origin far into the obscure regions of fable, no other mineral springs in England have obtained a longer, more extensive, and equally increasing. reputation.

The Tewit Spa, so called from the lapwings. which yet frequent the spot, appears to have been the first of the Harrogate springs which acquired notoriety for its medicinal properties. It was accidentally discovered in the year 1571, by William Slingsby, Esq. an ancestor of the present Sir Charles Slingsby, Bart. of Scriven Park. Having travelled

in Germany, and used the celebrated chalybeate waters at Spa, this gentleman was struck with its great resemblance to the Sauveniere Fountain, and, with a laudable patriotism not uncommon, had the circumstance been less warranted by facts, preferred it to the Spa Fountain, as being "more brisk and lively," and, in the language of the times, "fuller of mineral spirits, and of speedier operation." Living in the neighbourhood, he continued to use it with advantage for many years; and his example, together with the cures performed, some of which, as given by Dr. Stanhope, are stated by Dr. Short, "as perhaps the greatest and most remarkable filed up in the authentic records of physic, down from Hippocrates to this day," soon increased its celebrity, and led to the discovery and use of the other chalybeate and sulphurous springs. Although the Tewit Spring is the first of which we have any account as having been taken internally, it is evident, from the names of some other wells, such as St. Mungo's, St. Robert's, and St. Ann's, that they had been resorted to, at least for bathing, many centuries before.

The treatises which have been published expressly on the Harrogate Waters, constitute no inconsiderable number; and when taken in conjunction with what has been remarked by those

who have written more generally on this department of medical science, are amply sufficient to shew their importance.

Without entering into the particular history of, or instituting any minute comparison between these works and their respective authors, it may be observed, that Dr. Dean appears to have been the first who published an account of the Tewit Well, in 1626.* It had previously however found two firm advocates in a Dr. Timothy Bright, and Dr. Anthony Hunter, physician at Newark-uponTrent, the latter of whom, says Dr. Dean "often. chided us physicians at York for not writing upon it, and deservedly setting it upon the wings of fame."

Dr. Stanhope, in 1632, wrote a fanciful, but not incorrect, statement of the springs known in his time; and details a number of wonderful, cures, in the quaint, rounded, and verbose language of that stately age.

Dr. John French, in 1651, " being commanded by his occasions down to the Spaw in Yorkshire,

* Vide Spandarine Anglica, or the English Spaw Fountain, in the Forest of Knaresburg; as also a relation of other Medicinal waters, in the said Forest, 4to., London, 1626.

+ Entitled, Cures without Care; or, Summons to all such as find little or no help by the use of Physick. to repair to the Northern Spaw; wherein, by many Precedents, of a few late years, it is proved to the World, that infirmities, of their own nature desperate, and of long continuance, have received perfect cure by virtue of Mineral Waters, near Knaresbrough, by Michael Stanhope, London, 1632, 4to.

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