In Search of an English Spaw

[I only present here sections of the material for this chapter that have been somewhat edited to give a sense of what this chapter is all about.]

In 1627 Michael Stanhope, Esq. published in Newes out of York-shire an account of a journey that he, Dr. Edmund Deane (ca. 1572- ca. 1640), and others had made on horseback to check out a spring near Knaresborough that reportedly produced waters much like those of Spa.

In the latter end of the summer 1625, being casually with Dr. Deane (a Phisitian of good repute at his house at Yorke, one who is far from the straine of many of his profession, who are so chained in their opinion to their Apothecary shops, that they renounce the taking notice of any vertue not confined within that circuit) he tooke occasion to make a motion to me (the rather for that he remembred I had been at the Spa in Germany) of taking the aire, and to make our rendez-vouz at Knaresbrough, to the end wee might be the better opportuned, to take a view of the Tuit–well, (whereof he had sparingly heard) for that it was by some compared to the so much fam’d Spa in Germany.

I was not nice to give way to the summons of his desire ; the match was soone made, and the next day, accompanied with a worthy Knight a judicious admirer, and curious speculator of rarities, & three other Phisitians of allowable knowledge, we set forwards for Knaresbrough, being about fourteene miles from Yorke. Wee made no stay at the towne, but so soone as we could be provided of a guide, wee made towards the Well, which we found almost two miles from the Towne. It is scituate upon a rude barren Moore, the way to it in a manner a continuall ascent. Upon our first approach to the Spring, we were satisfied that former times had taken notice of it, by reason it was encloased with stone, and paved at the bottome, but withall we plainly perceived that it had beene long forgotten, which the filth wherewith it was choaked did witnesse, besides that through neglect the currents of other waters were suffered to steale into it. Before any peremptory triall was made of it, it was thought fit first to clense the Well, and to stop the passage of any other waters intermixture, which within the compasse of an houre we effected. The bottome now cleared, we plainely descried where the waters did spring up, and then the Physitians began to try their experiments.

But first I dranke of it, and finding it to have a perfect Spa relish, (I confesse) I could not containe, but in a tone louder than ordinary, I bade them welcome to the Spa. Presently they all took essaies of it, and though they could not denie, but that it had a different smack from all other common waters, most confessing that it did leave in the pallate a kinde of acidenesse, yet the better to be assured whether it did partake with Vitrioll the prime ingredient in the natural Spa, they mixed in a glasse the powder of Galls with the water, knowing by experience if this Minerall had any acquaintance with the Spring, the powder would discolour the water, and turne it to a Claret die; wherein they were not deceived, for presently (to their both wonder and joy) the water changed colour, and seemed to blush in behalf of the Country, who had amongst them so great a Jewell and made no reckoning of it. Thus pleased (having every one taken a draught, or two) wee returned to the Towne… ¹

The Search for Spa-like Springs

Once the search was on for other Spa-like springs, it became obvious that there were quite a few of them. Sometimes this involved discovering new springs. But quite typically it involved simply the relabeling of springs long since discovered. Springs that had previously been seen simply as acidulous suddenly became vitrioline. Indeed the name Sauerbrunnen in German would come to be synonymous with Spa-like springs and encapsulate all springs that, like Spa waters, contained both something of vitriol and something of iron, while the name Iserbrunnen fell by the wayside. Springs like St. Moritz and Eger made famous a century earlier by Paracelsus and Agricola were on second check seen to be very Spa-like. Names like Pougues and Forges in France; Franzensbad (formerly Egra/Eger) in Bohemia; St. Moritz in Switzerland; Pyrmont and Schwalbach in Germany; Scarborough and Harrogate in England; and Spa in Belgium became renowned across Europe, all sour, irony cold springs good for all that ailed ye. These Spa-like springs became the most celebrated drinking springs in Europe for the next four hundred years. ²

The question of Pliny’s fountain, apart from the debate over Tongeren versus Spa, likewise fell by the wayside even though the same features that Pliny described were those that observers were noticing over and over again. Somehow Paracelsus and Agricola had simply failed to notice the ferruginous aftertaste, the popping bubbles, the turbidity, finally turning red even without heating. It is hard to imagine that early writers could have missed these features completely. For whatever reason, they must have found these features simply uninteresting or at least not interesting enough to note the similarity to Pliny’s Tungri spring. They chose instead to focus on the acidulousness or vitrioline nature of the springs, something Pliny had not mentioned.

How were these Spa-like waters indentified? There were the distillation methods of Falloppio. But distillation was tedious, expensive, difficult to perform in the field, and required a great expertise to carry out precisely. Beside the fact that chymists could often come up with quite different results from the same water causing much confusion.

There were a few basic tests that even laymen could and did use to determine whether a local spring had Spa-like qualities. First there was the taste test. This required someone who had actually been to Spa and drunk the waters at source. If the local waters had the immediate sprightly, slightly tart taste of the Spa waters, then you could claim the waters were vitrioline. In numerous places people who had been to Spa confirmed that some local spring tasted just like Spa waters.

Observers in the early 17th century came to the conclusion that there was a surer, more scientific, and at the same time quick and dirty way of assuring that waters were truly Spa-like that did not depend on subjective taste or the difficulties of distillation: the gall-nut test. So definitive was the gall-nut test considered that a positive result was often equated with medicinal virtue which sometimes encouraged manipulating samples of the waters to produce a positive test. Scientists and laymen alike came to see the gall-nut test as a substitute for distillation and analysis of residue. Some saw the color test as superior because they believed that the heat of distillation caused a change in the minerals present in the water. A positive test with gall nuts proved that the waters were truly vitrioline.

Elite Support

All across northern Europe, monarchs were personally directing the search for and development of their natural resources, including mineral waters. Entrepreneurs were turning their local springs into tourist attractions. Local physicians were kept busy analyzing the contents and medicinal effects of these waters, celebrating them in books and pamphlets, and adminstering to the needs of the patients who flocked to the springs to partake in the cure. ³

In the mid-17th century much of the interesting developments in the science of mineral waters shifted from the Continent to England. English scientists came a bit late to the analysis of mineral springs and much of their work paralleled later developments in France of Samuel Du Clos and Pierre Le Givre. But the late 17th century, mineral water analysis will over the course of the 17th century attract the attention of the Royal Society and the most preeminent English scientists, who will play a major role in adding a more critical attitude toward commonly accepted platitudes about mineral springs, especially Spa-like waters.

From the late 16th through the 19th century, Englishmen saw what they called “the German Spaw” in present-day Belgium as the preeminent medicinal spring. In the late 16th and early 17th century, English physicians were the for the most part interested in promoting visits to Spa waters rather than finding English alternatives. We have already mentioned William Paddy and Richard Andrews who worked with Henri de Heer in distilling Spa waters and promoted their use in the early 17th century. ⁴

But even before Paddy and Andrews, other English physicians were busy issuing certificates so that Englishmen could travel to Spa. For example, in support of Henry Jernegan, Senior’s request for a license to travel for 1 year to the Spa, on 24 April 1604, Launcelot Browne and Martin Schoverus, physicians to King James I and his wife Queen Anne of Denmark, issued a certificate “that they think the Spa waters beneficial for such diseases as are complained of by [Henry] Jernegan, sen.: viz., ‘the rheum, vertigo, convulsions, palsye, melancholia, hypocondriaca,’ &c.” ⁵ “Normally two physicians were required to sponsor each licence application, and the recurring names of some doctors on the certificates suggests the existence of a small group with a specialist interest in the water cure”. “A survey of the licenses issued specifically for Spa for a limited period, 1613-24, reveals at least 337 English men and women with the cover of passes”. “About 1626 an Anglican chapel, equal in status to the English parishes and deemed to be a part of the bishopric of London, was erected there”. “Spa was no longer the refuge only of recusants and the sick but had become a fashionable resort attractive to the wealthier English Protestants and Catholics alike”. Some of these physicians would even travel with their wealthy patrons to Spa. “English physicians who emphasized the importance of the local consumption of the waters, often enjoyed a good holiday out of it. A physician’s opinion on one’s medical condition was necessary to procure a Spa travel permit, and some patients took an English doctor with them”. ⁶

Besides signing certificates for travel to Spa, other Englishmen discovered a profitable business in the importing of bottled Spa waters. “The medical profession now gave increasing approval to the consumption of Spa water, either at the place of origin or imported. By about 1600 there was a growing trade in Spa water with England. Henri de Heer in 1603, over a decade before Spadacrene was published, had already sent 200 bottles of waters from the Pouhon spring to ‘Kensington near London’. When the waters arrived in good condition after over ten days’ journey, more despatches followed accompanied by certificates of origin from the town authority, la Cour de Justice de Spa. Sir William Selbie brought 800 bottles of the water back from Spa in 1611, for, it was reported, ‘he cannot live without it’. By 1632 England was receiving a large share of the about 100,000 bottles exported from Spa”. ⁷

The English Spaw

As early as the late 16th century, some Englishmen were interested in discovering an English alternative to Spa. However, although locals made claims to have discovered Spa-like waters, none really came to national prominence until the Tuit-well located in the West Riding of Yorkshire near the town of Knaresborough, made famous by a series of publications in London beginning with Edmund Deane’s Spadacrene Anglica, or, The English Spaw-Fountaine (1626), followed by Stanhope’s Newes out of York-Shire (1627), Stanhope’s Cures without Care (1632), and finally John French’s The York-shire Spaw (1652). ⁸

Deane and Stanhope reported that “the vulgar sort” commonly called the spring “Tuewhit-well”, “Tewit-well”, or “Tuit-well”, which Stanhope conjectured was due to the presence of green plovers — called tewhits because of the sound the birds make — which “usually haunt the place”. ⁹ But Deane preferred the name “the English Spaw” by which “the better sort” referred to the spring because of its close resemblance to “the Spa in Germanie”. ¹⁰ Deane further emphasized the similiarity between “the English Spaw” and “the Germaine Spaw” by entitling his book Spadacrene Anglica which was an obvious homage to the preeminence of Spa and the standard of excellence in writing on the subject set by Henri de Heer. Stanhope referred to the spring as “the Northerne Spaw” and French “the York-shire Spaw” to contrast perhaps with Tunbridge Wells in Kent which some locals had also begun to compare the Spa waters. ¹¹

Deane credited the discovery of the medicinal virtue of the Tewhit spring to William Slingsby who about 55 years earlier (ca. 1571) was living in “a grange house very neare to this fountaine” and, having drunk the waters, noted their resemblance to those of Spa which he had visited as a young man. It was Slingsby who

caused the fountaine to be well, and artificially walled about, and paved at the bottome (as it is now at this day [i.e., 1626]) with two faire stone flags, with a fit hole in the side thereof, for the free passage of the water through a little guttered stone. It is open at the top, and walled somewhat higher, then the earth, as well to keepe out filth, as Cattle for comming and approaching to it. It is foure-square, three foot wide, and the water within is about three quarters of a yard deepe. ¹²

Slingsby

did drinke the water of this Fountaine every yeare after all his life time, for helping his infirmities, and maintaining of his health, and would oftentimes say and averre, that it was much better, and did excell the tart fountaines beyond the seas, as being more quicke and lively, and fuller of minerall spirits; effecting his operation more speedily, and sooner passing through the body. ¹³

Dr. Timothy Bright (d. 1617), “a physician patronized by Lord Burghley and the Elizabethan court circle,” “a Cambridge graduate, author of five medical books and a physician at St Bartholomew’s,” renowned today as the “father of shorthand”, also compared the Tewit Well favourably with that of Spa, “where he also had spent some time. He sent others to it and took the waters himself in the summer, and about 1596 he named the Tewit Well the ‘English Spaw'”. ¹⁴

Neither Slingsby nor Bright did much to develop this Tewit Well and it had become only a local legend, when Deane, Stanhope, and a few others who journeyed from the town of York to see if they could “rediscover” it later in the summer of 1625. They found the well “decayed and filthy,” but after cleaning it up a bit, were pleased as punch to discover that the water had “a perfect Spa relish”. ¹⁵ Deane observed that “The streame of water, which passeth away by the hole in the side thereof, is much one, and about the proportion of the current of the Sauvenir.” ¹⁶

 Fairly Simple Analysis

Neither Deane and Stanhope seemed too aware of Continental works on Spa-like waters. Deane’s choice of Spadacrene Anglica for his title suggests at least some passing familiarity with de Heer’s book but he does not mention de Heer otherwise. Stanhope in 1626 casually mentions the works of Gherinx and Pigray but does not draw upon anything specific from those works or, indeed, any other. ¹⁷ Neither Deane nor Stanhope was interested in an exact chemical analysis through distillation in the manner of Continental analysts. Deane even claimed it was impossible to know exact proportions. ¹⁸

For Deane and Stanhope, the only mineral of interest was vitriol which they believed was the chief mineral of the German Spaw waters. Deane believed that the chief ingredient in the Tewit spring waters was likewise vitriol, for which

there needs no other proofe, then from the assay of the water it selfe; which both in the tart and inky smack thereof, joyned with a piercing and a pricking quality, and in the savour (which is somewhat a little vitrioline,) is altogether like unto the ancient Spaw waters; which according to the consent of all those, who have considered their naturall compositions, doe most of all, and chiefly participate of vitrioll. ¹⁹

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that Deane in the subtitle of his book was among the first to use the term “acide” in English as a synonym for the tart taste of the Spaw waters, obviously derived from the Latin or French terms for Spa-like waters. ²⁰ But Deane described the vitroline waters as also having an “inky” taste. Whereas earlier writers might write about a vitrioline taste, 17th-century English writers tended to write of an inky taste, undoubtedly based on the smell of ink prepared from vitriol and galls. ²¹

The smell of iron-gall ink, like blood, smells of what today we would describe as irony, but which 17th-century Englishmen associated primarily with ink.

But, for Deane and Stanhope, as for others, the ultimate test of vitriol was the gall-nut test. The powder of galls, Deane noted, turned the Tewit waters “the right and perfect colour of Claret wine.” ²² If Deane had been more familiar with Continental writings on the subject, he might have known that traditionally a solution of vitriol was seen as turning BLACK, not the color of claret wine, with oak galls. Also he might have known that Fallopio claimed that a solution of burnt alum also turned black with gall nuts. Or that Henri de Heer asserted that the gall-nut test really served as an indication of the presence of iron in the waters. But a claret-wine color was good enough proof for Deane that the Tewit waters were vitrioline. Still this shows that, regardless of disagreement and confusion over what the oak-gall test was actually measuring, it had quickly ascended to become the sine qua non of tests to prove the medicinal virtue of a spring.

Medicinal Virtues of the Spaw

In their books, Deane and Stanhope laid out all the arguments they could muster to convince Englishmen why they should patronize their spring rather than travel to what they called “the Germaine Spaw.” Although they did not know much about testing mineral waters or the particulars about Spa, both Deane and Stanhope certainly knew about the acclaimed virtues of vitriol. Neither mentioned Paracelsus, but they did cite as authorities on the miraculous medicinal virtues of vitrioline waters the work of Paracelsians like Joseph du Chesne (Quercetanus), Hermann Wolff, Jean Renou (Renodæus), and Thomas Jordan. ²³ Deane claimed that Quercetanus was of the opinion that out of vitriol “there might be made all manner of remedies and medicines sufficient for the storing and furnishing of a whole Apothecaries shop.”Deane quoted Renodœus as saying “Those waters which are replenished with a vitrioline quality, as those at the Spaw, doe presently heale, and (as it were) miraculously cure diseases, which are without all hope of recovery; having that notable power, and faculty from vitrioll; by the vertue and efficacy whereof, they passe through the meanders, turnings, and windings of all parts of the whole body. Whatsoever is hurtfull, or endammageth it, that they sweepe and carie away: what is profitable and commodious, they touch not, nor hurt; that, which is flaccid, and loose, they bind and fasten: that, which is fastened, and strictly tyed, they loose: what is too grosse and thicke, they incide, dissolve, attenuate, and expell.” ²⁴ Next to such superlatives, Hermann Wolff was rather lame in reporting claims that “Vitrioline waters have a faculty of mundefying and purging all the parts of the body, corroborating the braine, curing the Epilepsie, exciting the appetite, killing all sorts of wormes, opposing the Palsey, Dropsie, Iaundise, breeding of the stone, suffocation of the matrix, all inward oppilatios, prevent the goute, with many other excellent qualities as may appeare in that his discourse in the third chapter.” ²⁵

 Loss of spirits

Despite all this knowledge of the virtues of vitriol, Deane and Stanhope were so little knowledgeable of other writers on Spa-like waters that they were flabbergasted to discover that, after bringing bottles of the Tewit waters back to York, the waters had lost their tart taste and did not tincture with galls. It was “as if it skorned to shew its Majesty out of it owne proper throne.” Both came to the conclusion, as Stanhope put it, that “the water is repleate with nimble, aiery, vertuall spirits.” However, they disagreed as to the solution. Stanhope concluded that all that was required to prevent the loss of spirits was careful stoppering. But Deane decided there was nothing that could be done to prevent this loss of spirits, just like the waters of Sauveniere. The spirits “will endure little or no translocation, but by their subtility steale away, and so leave the water insipid, and in a manner voyd of the taste it retaineth in its naturall state.” And, “since it is the spirits which gives these waters life,” the dissipation of spirit whenever the waters are carried far from the well means the waters have to be drunk at the source to be effective. ²⁶

Some contemporaries and historians have suggested that claims of the loss of virtue through well-stoppered glass bottles were made by local physicians as a publicity pitch to build up their practice. The only way the physicians could make money is if potential patients came to their spring where the physicians could consult on the proper way of taking the waters as part of the entire rehabilitation regimen. ²⁷ Such claims could also be seen as making a virtue of necessity by claiming that because the waters lost their virtue so easily, that meant they were superior, much as Fuchs, de Heer, and others had claimed the superiority of the Savenir over the Pouhon, and French writers had claimed the superiority of the Pouques over imported Spa waters. Deane did the same for the English Spaw claiming that just as Sauveniere was superior to Pouhon, the English Spaw was superior to Sauveniere. ²⁸

Stanhope’s Cures without Care

Five years later, in Cures without Care, or a Summons to all such as find little or no helpe by the Use of Ordinary Physick to Repaire to the Northerne Spaw (London, 1632), Stanhope acknowledged the presence of iron as well as vitriol. Indeed, Stanhope, in a list of the medicinal virtues of the waters, credits far more cures to iron than vitriol. He reported as evidence

the discollering of the earth and stones where the current of the spring runnes: for it makes the channel red, which proceedes (as may be supposed) from Rubrique, otherwise called mater ferri. And the better to confirme that the water is no stranger to iron, it is very well knowne that the whole soyle where this water riseth is full of iron stone, the plenty whereof hath beene such, that the working of iron stone hath beene a meanes to exhaust a world of wood growing in that part, there being yet to see the remainder of a great iron worke within halfe a mile of the spring. Nor is the iron stone so concealed but by digging in most places it is easily found, much of it appearing in broaken bankes, and in the surface of the earth. I might boldly adde hereunto (for further proofe) the discollering of the stooles of such as drinke the water, giving them a blacn [sic] or deep green dye, a common observed note in iron waters, as also the operation of the water in all manner obstructions, wherein (who knowes not) that iron doth claime an unparaleled [sic] excellency, but the ensuing discourse will make this good. ²⁹

Stanhope added further support for the presence of vitriol. He took as

proofe of the infallibility of Vitriol the taste of the water, which is very acide, and rough upon the pallate, in plainer English, ynkish, and so like to Vitrioll or Copperas (called anciently Attramentum [sic] sutorium) that there is little or no difference betwixt the taste of the water and the substance of Vitrioll touched with the tongue; or a drop of the oyle thereof mixed with a little water. Besides, take a glasse of the water (which in itselfe is translucid and very cleare, equaling the choicest spring) let the quantity be a pinte or thereabout, put to it so much Gall in powder as will cover our common farthing, stirre it never so little, and the water receiveth a perfect Clarret dye. Or take a greene Oake sticke, bruise it at the end, and with it stirre the like quantity of water, and within a small space it is turned into a pure Saphir blew, or (standing a while with the sticke in it) to a Violet colour, both which hath beene often tryed. ³⁰

Stanhope also promoted a new vitrioline spring he found a quarter of a mile away from the Tewhit well which he observed was like the Pouhon to the Spaw’s Sauveniere. (On this “other” spring, see more below.)

Success of the Spaw

“The effect of this publicity for Knaresborough was dramatic. Almost immediately after the publication of Deane’s and Stanhope’s works on the waters, a sudden flow of visitors came to the town to take the waters”. ³¹

The Spaw received a big boost in the 1630s from Sir Theodore Mayerne, as the distinguished physician Turquet de Mayerne was known after leaving France for England in ??? following his dispute with the College of Physicians only to become senior physician to King James I. ³²

He [Mayerne] was catholic in his patronage of the English spas: Bath, Epsom, Tunbridge Wells and Wellingborough were favoured, and also Harrogate for his northern and Scottish clients. In June 1638 he recommended James, Lord Livingston of Almond (Count d’Amart) to take ‘Spa waters’, especially those of Knaresborough (Harrogate), which were sharp, vitriolic and ferruginous, in increasing quantities. ³³

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, no one challenged Knaresborough’s status as being England’s preeminent Spa-like waters. It was typically called simply “the Spa” from the 1640s through the 1660s. ³⁴ Beginning in the 1660s commentators began to distinguish between “the Sweet Spaw” and “the Sulphurus Spaw”.

Wednesday, 20th July (1664), they went to the Spaw … thir are two wells which they call the Sulphurus Spaw, of a most unpleasant smell and taste, and stinks like the smell of a sinke, or rotten eggs, but it is very medicinable for many diseases; also halfe a mile from thence is another Well which they call the Sweet Spaw, in taste much like the waters of Epsome and Tunbridge; of the virtue of these waters, on Dr. Deane haith write a small treitice. ³⁵

The distinction continued through the 17th century and into the 18th century. ³⁶ On his 1717 tour through Great Britain, Daniel Defoe referred in his journal to “the Sweet Spaw” (which he called “Vitriolick”) and “the Stinking Spaw”, although he noted that the better sort called the latter “the Sulphur Well”. ³⁷

 Edward Jorden

The year before Stanhope’s Cures Without Care came out, the English physician Edward Jorden (1569-1633) published the first edition of his classic A Discourse of Naturall Bathes, and Minerall Waters (1631). There is some dispute as to whether Jorden studied at Oxford or Cambridge or both, but all accounts agree that he travelled extensively on the continent and earned his MD at Padua (ca. 1591) where he would have become familiar with the work of Fallopio and other student of mineral waters. Upon returning to England, he became “a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in November 1595 and a Fellow in December 1597. He practised as a physician in Bishopsgate, London from 1596-1600. He practised medicine in Bath from 1600 where he died on 7 January 1633, being buried in the Abbey Church.” ³⁸

Historians of science have devoted much attention to Jorden as an important figure in the transfer of the best Continental chymical knowledge and practice. His Discourse of Naturall Bathes, and Minerall Waters was “well known in the seventeenth century. It went through two editions and five printings (1631, 1632, 1633, 1669, 1673), and it was frequently referred to by many authors”. ³⁹ “Jorden was a pioneer of chemical analysis and his book became a standard for many later seventeenth-century physicians who followed his lead”. ⁴⁰ In his analysis of spa waters, “Jorden emerges as one of the outstanding analytical chemists of the early seventeenth century”. ⁴¹ Allen Debus claims Edward Jorden “represents a direct English link with the continental iatrochemical tradition” of Paracelsus and Van Helmont. ⁴²

In his Discourse, Jorden provided a coherent overall framework for mineral water analysis in line with Fallopio but far more abbreviated than Fallopio and quite original in many of his ideas. As examples of various types of mineral waters, Jorden mentioned English as well as Continental springs.

Jorden defined mineral waters as waters which “besides their owne simple nature, have received and imbibed some other qualitie or substance from Subterraneall Mynes”. ⁴³ He further identified the “seaven rankes” of minerals found in mineral waters: earths, stones, bitumens, concrete mineral juices, mineral spirits, half metals, and metals. ⁴⁴ Jorden also described in great detail methods for distinguishing the different types of minerals in mineral waters. ⁴⁵

Our Minerals therefore, are either confused or mixed with the water. If they bee confused they are easily discerned: for they make the water thick and pudly, and will either swim above, as Bitumen will doe, or sinck to the bottom, as earth, Sulphur, and some terrestriall iuyces; for no confused water will remaine long unseparated. If they are perfectly mixed with the water, then their mixture is either corporall, where the very body of the Minerall is imbibed in the water, or spirituall, where either some exhalation, or spirit, or tincture is imparted to the water. ⁴⁶

Here, drawing on the earlier work of Fallopio, Jorden distinguishes between minerals that are “confused” and those that are “mixed” with the water. If the minerals are confused, they will separate in due time on their own. For example, some confused minerals will sink to the bottom, for example, earths, certain “mineral spirits” like sulphur, and “some terrestriall iuyces”. Other confused minerals like bitumens will rise to the top. ⁴⁷

Following a tradition going back to Agricola, juices come in for special attention.

Corporally there are no mineralls mixed with water, but iuyces, either liquid, as succus lapidescens, metallificus, &c. before they are perfectly congeled into their naturall consistence, or concrete, as Salt, Niter, Vitriol, and Allum. And these concrete iuyces doe not only dissolve themselves in water, but oftentimes bring with them some tincture or spirit from other Minerals. For as water is apt to receive iuyces, and tinctures, and spirits from animals, and vegetables; so are concrete iuyces, being dissolved, apt to extract tinctures and Spirits from minerals, and to communicate them with water. And there are no Mynes, but have some of these concrete iuyces in them, to dissolve the materials of them, for their better union and mixture: and there are few minerals or metals, but have some of them incorporated with them; as we see in Iron, and Copper, and Tinne, and Leade, &c. And this is the reason that water being long kept in Vessels, of any of these metals, it will receive a taste and smell from them, especially if it be attenuated, either by heate, or by addition of some soure iuyce; and yet more, if the metals be fyled into powder, as we see in making Chalibeat wine, or Sugar of Leade, or Puttie from Tinne, or Verdegrease from Copper. ⁴⁸

Jorden devotes much more attention to what he calls, following Agricola, “concrete mineral juices” but defines the term more narrowly than earlier writers as including only minerals that are easily dissolvable in water — those substances he claims that alchemists call “salts” — and limits his discussion to “the foure principall sorts of them ; Salt, Niter, Allum, Vitrioll.” ⁴⁹

A Fourth sort of minerals are concrete iuyces which are minerall substances dissoluble in water. These the Alchimists call Salts, and are the meanes of communicating all other minerals with water. For as water is apt to dissolve and extract vegetables, so are these concrete iuyces apt to dissolve and extract minerall substances. And although they are found sometimes liquid being dissolved by moisture: yet we call them concrete, because they will be concrete when the adventitious moisture is removed. Our minerall Authors doe make many sorts of these according to the severall minerals which they imbibe: but in truth they may bee all reduced to foure heads ; Salt, Niter, Allum, and Vitrioll. And each of these hath divers species, as Geber and Cæsalpinus say of Salt, quot genera calcium, tut genera salium. ⁵⁰

Actually even though Jorden continue to employ Agricola’s term “concrete juices”, he ended up dumping Agricola’s sense in favor of the alchmical term “salt”, as he noted in his chapter title “Of Minerall Juyces concrete : called by the Alchimists, Salts. The four principall sorts of them ; Salt, Niter, Allum, Vitrioll.” ⁵¹

As to the origins of these distinct concrete juices, Jorden like Van Helmont theorizes that each has its particular seed.

So that it seems, for the ornament of the universe, that nature hath so distinguished these species, as it doth plants, among which some have thick leaves, some thin, some long, round, jagged, &c. So in their flowers, fruits, colours, smells, &c. every kind hath his own fashion. The reason hereof Scaliger saith cannot be drawn from the Elements, nor from the thinness, thickness, clamminess, heat, cold, dryness, moysture, plenty, scarsity, &c. of the matter, but only from the form, anima, seed, &c. which frames every species to his own figure, order, number, quantity, colour, taste, smell, &c. according to the science, as Severinus terms in which every seed hath of its own form. So also it is in minerals, which have their seeds to maintain and perpetuate the Species. ⁵²

“Our learned and ingenious Countryman Doctor Jorden, giveth this Reason for the generation of Metals : and saith, ‘It appears in Genesis, that Planter were not created perfect at first…” ⁵³

Webster also quotes Sendivogius which he translated as “Therefore it is of necessity, that either the four Elements should create the seed of Metals, or that they should produce them without seed. If they be produced with seed, then they cannot be made perfect; seeing everything is imperfect without seed, if regard of the Compound'” ⁵⁴

“A third reason I take to be this, To prove that Metals are generated: That whosoever hath diligently considered the manner how most Metals do lie in their wombs, or beds, which for the most part are hard Rocks, Cliffs, and Stones, or things equivalently as hard as they, as lank and spare, must necessarily conclude, that they could never have penetrated the Clefts, Chinks, and porous places of such hard bodies, but that before their entrance into those cavities, they were in principiis solutis , either in form of water, or vapours, and steams. And then were those steams, or that water produced before their induration into a Metalline form , and after concocted and maturated into several forms of Metals ; which is an analogous, if not an univocal generation ; otherwise they could never be found in such streight passages , and narrow cavities , as all experience doth testifie they are.” ⁵⁵

Jorden removes from the list of concrete juices all the others mentioned by Agricola because he did not see these substances as soluble in the same way that salt, nitre, alum, and vitriol were soluble in water, or else if soluble they combined other minerals with one of the four main types of concrete juices. “Among these concrete iuyces Agricola reckons Sulphur, Bitumen, Auripigmentum, Sandaracha, Chrisocola, Erugo, Mysi, Sori, Melateria, &c. But if wee examine them aright, wee shall finde, that either they are no dissoluble in water as concrete iuyces should be, or they are some of those iuyces tincted or incorporated with other mineralls.” ⁵⁶ Noticeably missing from this list is ferrugo — lumped one presumes into the “&c.”.– which played such an important role in Agricola’s and Fallopio’s thinking on waters than partake of iron, as discussed further below.

Jorden notes that these concrete juices play an even bigger role in mineral waters than their mere presence, because they extract tinctures and spirits from other minerals and “communicate” them with the water. All mines have concrete mineral juices and almost all minerals and metals have some juices mixed with them. These juices “dissolve” the materials in mine, uniting to some degree with the metals and minerals they dissolve.

Jorden devotes some attention to minerals present only in their spiritual form. He has a particular category of minerals he calls “mineral spirits”, which he defines as those minerals which were “volatill in the fire, and have ingression into metals, but not metall in fusion” including quicksilver, sulphur, arsenick, cadmia, rusma, etc. ⁵⁷ But more importantly he suggests that several of the other categories (e.g., concrete mineral juices, metals) may also be present in the water in the form of spirits. Unfortunately, as Jorden admits, it is hard to prove the presence of these spirits in mineral waters.

There may be also a mixture of Spirituall substance from minerals, whilst they are in generation, and in Solutis Principiis: the water passing through them, and the water if it be actually hot, for then it is more apt to imbybe it, and will containe more in it, being attenuated by heate, then being cold, as we see in Vrines, which though they bee full of humours, yet make no great shew of them so long as they are warme, but being cold, doe settle then to the bottome. ⁵⁸

These spirituall substances are hardly discerned in our Baths, but by the effects; for they leave no residence after evaporation; and are commonly as volutill in sublimation as the water it selfe : neither doe they encrease the weight of the water, nor much alter the taste or smell of them, unlesse they be very plentifull. Wherefore we have no certaine way to discover them, but by the effects. We may conjecture somewhat of them by the Mynes which are found near unto the Baths, and by the mud which is brought with the water. But that may deceive, as comming from the passages through which the water is conveyed, or, perhaps, from the sweat and strigments of mens bodyes which bathe in them. ⁵⁹

Jorden is much more helpful when it comes to identifying particular concrete mineral juices present corporally in the water.

The corporall substances are found, either by Sublimation or by precipitation. By Sublimation, when being brought to the state of congelation, and stickes of Wood put into it, within a few dayes, the concrete iuyces will shoote upon the wood; in Needles, if it bee Niter; in Squares, if it be Salt; and in Clods and Lumps, if it be Allum or Coperose; and the other minerall substances which the waters have received, will either incorporate a tincture with them, or if it be more terrestrial, will settle and separate from it, and by drying it at a gentle fire, will shew from what house it comes, either by colour, taste, smell, or vertue. ⁶⁰

This passage in Jorden has deservedly received much attention from historians of chemistry as one of the best early examples of using crystal form in solution analysis. ⁶¹ Earlier writers would only mention evaporating the waters to identify the minerals present, whereas Jorden describes a method that any modern student would be familiar with of congealing crystals slowly on a stick of wood. He also describes the shape of the crystals formed, although his listing is vague and incomplete. Clearly, by “squares” Jorden is referring to the cubic arrangement of the crystals of sodium chloride. One imagines by “needles”, he is referring to the crystals formed by potassium nitrate. Elsewhere he writes that Salt-Peter (undoubtedly potassium nitrate) is high similar in all its characteristics to “the ancient Niter” (i.e., natron, most likely sodium carbonate), with the only difference “that a pound of Niter being bunt, will leave foure ounces of ashes; Salt-peter will leave none”. ⁶² However, what he meant by “clods and lumps” when it comes to alum or copperas is far from clear because the sulphates will all form beautiful crystals of various shapes in a similar fashion as sodium chloride and potassium nitrate that would hardly be described as clods and lumps. One suspects — as with his confusing salt-peter and “the ancient Niter” — that Jorden’s crystallization technique and analysis was rather weak. ⁶³

Whereas Paracelsus, Agricola, Fallopio, and others had observed a close family resemblance between vitriol and alum, but Jorden goes even further claiming that vitriol might simply be alum with a tincture of either copper or iron.

Concerning Vitrioll there may bee some doubt whether it be a distinct species from Allum, and have received only some tincture from Copper, or Iron, or from some of their brood, which are called excrements. For in distilling oyle of Vitrioll, the lute wherewith the glasses are ioyned, will yeeld perfect Allum. And Vitrioll being boyld ariseth in balls as Allum doth, and shoots like Allum in globos [i.e, glebas “into clods/lumps”] as Salt doth in tesseras [“into cubes”] and Niter in stirias [“into icicles”]. ⁶⁴

Allum and Vitriol are much alike, but that Vitriol hath a garbe from Copper or yron. These are very astringent, and without doubt cold, whatsoever hath beene held of them. The waters or phlegmes distilled from them doe exceedingly coole in Iuleps, as Quercitan and Claudius Dariot have observed, and we also by daily experience doe finde true: by reason of the intense aciditie they have, being distilled from their Terrestriall parts. Also those acidula which the Germans call Saurbrun, proceeding from these iuyces, are much used to quench the heate of fevers…And therefore it is more probable that these corrosives are more cold than hot. ⁶⁵

As we see here, Jorden in his use of aciditie implied much more than taste. That Jorden meant more than taste is affirmed by his description of the use of acids and alkalis to precipitate solutions as a means of analysis as well as the first description of a color test for distinguishing between acids and alkalis.

There is an other way by precipitation, whereby those minerall substances are stricken downe from their concrete iuyces which held them, by addition of some opposite substance. And this is of two sorts: either Salts, as Tartar, Soap, Ashes, Kelps, Urine, &c. Or sowre iuyces, as Vinegar, Lymons, Oyle of Vitrioll, Sulphur, &c. In which I have observed that the Salts are proper to blew colours, and the other to red; for example, take a piece of Scarlet cloath, and wet it in Oyle of Tartar (the strongest of that kinde) and it presently becomes blew: dip it again in Oyle of Vitriol, and it becomes red againe. ⁶⁶

Although he does not use the words acid or alkali, his list of substances is clearly consistent with what later 17th-century writers will label as acids and alkalis. Jorden envisions that the addition of some “opposite substance” can liberate the mineral substance held in solution by the concrete juice. One would assume that what Jorden is saying here is that these added substances are the opposite of the mineral juice and thus cancel out the power of the mineral juice to incorporate the liberated mineral. Overall, however, it is not clear which concrete juices Jorden believes are the opposite of acids and which the opposite of alkalis. Furthermore he does not give any example of minerals liberated by these additions. One might presume, for example, that any metal/mineral dissolved by alum would be released, but what about the iron/copper that vitriol incorporates?

Still Jorden does provide a new way of looking at analyzing mineral waters akin to the acid-alkali reaction mentioned above, describing the reaction as based not on opposities but the precipitation of the substance less “familiar to water” and thus of less “easie dissolution”. Thus he states that alum and copperas will “fall to the bottome” if “some strong Lixivium of tartar” is added but suggests that any “other calcined salt” would do the same. It is not clear what calcination has to do with this reaction. Elsewhere Jorden adds that “These two minerall iuyces [i.e., alum and vitriol] are not so readily dissolved in water, as the other two [i.e., nitre and salt], and will be more easily precipitated by any opposite substance that is more familiar to water”. ⁶⁷ It is also unclear what would happen to whatever mineral or metal that would be held in solution by the alum or copperas.

Despite the similarities between alum and vitriol, Jorden gives much greater attention to vitrioline mineral waters. He notes there are two basic sorts in which mineral waters partake of vitriol, corporally and spiritually. He believes that the waters that partake of the corporal form of vitriol are those that convert iron into copper like Smolnicum in Hungary that we discussed in Chapter 6.

Vitriol, as I have said before, doth participate much with Allum in the manner of shooting or roching, which is in glebas, in the hard dissolution and easie congelation, in their arising in balls being burnt, and in their preparation : in so much as it is probable that the basis of Vitriol, is nothing by Allum. It is found in minerall waters of two sort. The one, where the very body and substance is dissolved: as in Cyprus, which Galen describes, where the water is greene: also at Smolnicum in Hungary, in Transilvania ad Carpatum montem, at Nensola, &c. In which places Copper is ordinarily made out of iron by infusing it in these waters. I will not determine whether this be transmutation of one species into another, as some doe hold, or rather a precipitation of the Copper which was formerly dissolved in the water by meanes of the sharpe Vitriol; which meeting with Iron, corrodes it, and imbibeth it, rather then the Copper, and so lets the Copper fall, and imbraceth the Iron in place of it. Wee daily see the like in Aqua fortis, which having imbibed one metall, will readily embrace another that is more familiar to it, and let fall the first. So Allum or Coppresse water having some strong Lixivium of tartar or other calcind salt put to it, the Allum or Coppresse will presently fall to the bottome, and participate, and give place to the Lixivium, as a thing more familiar to water, and of more easie dissolution. But as I say, I will not determine this question, because it is not much pertinent to our businesse.

Yet I will not omit the judgement of Lazarus Ercker the Emperours chiefe Mine master in the Kingdome of Bohemia, who professeth that he was long of this opinion, but altered it upon this reason, That by exact proofe he found more Copper stricken downe this way by Iron, then the water before did containe, and with the Copper some Silver. ⁶⁸

Debus has noted this passage as an early statement, along with that of Van Helmont discussed in Chapter 8, of the modern understanding a simple substitution reaction

Fe(s) + Cu2+ (aq) –> Fe2+ (aq) + Cu(s)

instead of earlier views that interpreted this phenomenon as a case of transmutation. However, Debus does not mention the second part of this passage in which it seems quite clear that Jorden does not prefer to take a position one way or another on this and, like Libavius, cites Ercker as proof of transmutation. ⁶⁹

<snip>

The Scarborough Wars

The success of Deane, Stanhope, and French in promoting the springs near Knaresborough inspired a similar effort some seventy miles away in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough led by another physician from York, Robert Wittie. However, in contrast to the relatively placid waters of Harrogate, events in Scarborough would become quite heated, stirring up one of the most contentious debates in 17th-century English science, one which would ultimately involve over a dozen individuals, seven books, numerous articles, and the authority of the Royal Society before it would finally die down, and even then it would continue to influence directly or indirectly later writings on mineral waters for decades to come.

In many ways, the Scarbrough debate will also seem like a replay of the debate between de Heer and Van Helmont. In this debate, Robert Wittie (1613-1684) will play the role of de Heer, the respected elder, and William Simpson (1636/7-1680) the role of Van Helmont, the younger provocateur. ⁷⁰

Robert Wittie

Wittie was born in Beverly, Yorkshire, the son of an alderman, a life-long friend of the poet Andrew Marvell, graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, followed by a Master’s degree and M.D. After obtaining his M.D., Wittie settled in Hull where he found himself involved in the great medical debates of mid-17th century England as “‘the most intimate friend and colleague’ of James Primerose, notorious as the opponent of Harvey.” “He [Wittie] translated, from the Latin of Dr. James Primrose, “Popular Errours, or the Errours of the People in matters of Physic,” the preface to which is dated “From my house at Hull, Decemb. 2, 1650.” On the subject of this translation, Marvell addressed two complimentary poems to Wittie, one in English, in which he styles the author “his worthy friend,” and the other in Latin, inscribed “Dignissimo suo Amico Doctori Witty.” ⁷¹

“It was there too [at Hull] that he [Witty] first became acquainted with the virtues of the waters at Scarborough and began to recommend them to his patients, among whom were most of the leading families in the county”. ⁷² After eighteen years residence in Hull, Witty moved to York in 1651 where “he soon established a large and fashionable practice”. Nine years later, Wittie published Scarborough Spaw (London, 1660). ⁷³

William Short in 1734 described Scarborough waters thus:

This Spaw Issues from the Bottom of a large Cliff, about a quarter of a Mile South of the Town, from which is a steep Descent, and then along the Sands till you come to the Spring, whose Water, fresh taken up, is extreamly clear and transparent, has a very quick and pungent Taste, and leaves a pleasant Flavour upon the Palate. ⁷⁴

According to Wittie, a certain Mrs. Farrow discovered the spring in 1626 upon observing the reddish brown stain on the surrounding rocks. She further tested the waters and found that oak galls gave the water a purple color. ⁷⁵

In his book, Wittie did not seek to claim that Scarborough waters wer simply Spa-like like the German Spaw or the Harrogate Spaw. Rather Wittie believed the Scarborough Spaw was superior in many ways to these Spa-like waters because it received its medicinal virtue not just from the vitriol and iron associated with all Spa-like waters, but from five different minerals — vitriol, iron, alom, nitre, and salt — each of which added its own special qualities to the water. ⁷⁶

 

After the level of analysis of French, Wittie’s brand of mineral water analysis comes as a disappointment. Nevertheless, he serves as a starting point for the debates to come and provides quite a bit of solid empirical evidence that had not been addressed by earlier writers.

To prove the presence of these five minerals, Wittie primarily followed Jorden, de Heer, and those parts of French where French is following Jorden. Indeed, one can even imagine that, since he presented scant evidence in support of the presence of all five, that Wittie was merely claiming the five in Scarborough waters as a way to claim all four of Jorden’s salts combined with the iron that Jorden also celebrates. In terms of the promotion of Scarborough waters, having all five minerals/metals would surely give Scarborough waters an advantage over all other Spa-like waters which according to Jorden had only iron and according to others had chiefly vitriol.

In the 1st edition of Scarborough Spaw Wittie claimed ,like French, that vitriol was present in both its spiritual and corporal forms in Scarborough Spaw waters. But to this Wittie added that iron was also present in both its spiritual and corporal forms. For proof of this, Wittie claimed that he could recognize the spiritual form of vitriol and iron in the waters by their taste and smell.

Of Vitriol it partakes by the first way eminently; to wit, by receiving its vapour, and so of Iron, yet so as it hath also something of the concrete juyces and substance of them both. From the vapours of Vitriol it hath its inky smell and acid taste, which after it hath been heated by the fire are gone at least in some degree, for it is not so strong as before. ⁷⁷

 

One presumes from this statement that Wittie also believed that the vapour of Iron gave the waters an irony smell and/or taste although he never actually says so.

Although Wittie claims it is best as always to drink the water at the source due to the escape of some of the spiritual bodies, neverthless he asserts that Scarbrough waters actually transport well and thus are akin to the Pouhont which had more of juice or substance of the minerals than a spring like Sauvenir. ⁷⁸

As for proof of the concrete juyces of vitriol and iron, Wittie suggests that these corporal forms contribute to the medicinal virtue of the waters.

Dioscorides will have it also to loose the belly, but especially he commends the flower or filings of Brass to that purpose: Now Iron being joyned with Vitriol in this water, partakes of the nature of Brass, as I said before; and is therefore the more purging and opening, from which conjunction I think it is that most of our vitrioline waters in England do loose the belly”. ⁷⁹ He further suggests that these corporal substances perhaps influence the color of the waters. “From the concrete juyces of Vitriol, Iron and Allome, I think it hath its colour being something of a bright azure or sky colour. ⁸⁰

To further prove the corporal presence of his five minerals, Wittie took three quarts of the Scarborough water which he “filtrated through a double thick wollen cloth” to remove any sand and then set it “upon the fire in a clean Skellet.” After the water had boiled a while, Wittie “discovered a reddish sand at the bottome.” Wittie then removed the skellet from the fire and poured the water off into another vessel. The reddish sand left behind weighed “about a dram, somewhat soft to the touch, not sharp as sand,” which had “a kind of Stiptick taste not saltish at all.” Wittie saw this reddish sand as evidence of “the substance of Iron” in the water. ⁸¹ Elsewhere he calls it “the substance of an Iron Minerall.” ⁸²

In order to analyze the salt left in the water after the earth was removed, Wittie then set the decanted water back on the fire to evaporate it, “cleansing off the scumme which arose, and at the bottome there remained a whitish Sediment, somewhat bitter, and very sharp in tast, to the quantity of two Drams, which cleaved to the bottome of the Skellet as if it were parched meat, not without difficulty to bee scraped off.” ⁸³ Wittie does not pursue earlier explantions, like French’s suggestion of an anima vitrioli or de Heer’s suggestion of amber, to explain this “scum”.

As for the sediment upon distillation, Wittie notes the whitish color and the “somewhat bitter” and “very sharp” taste. As for what this “whitish sediment” was, Wittie claimed it actually proved the presence of alum, based on the observation that “when the water was almost all evaporated and spent, it rose up in Bullas, making a bubbling noyse, like the boyling of Allome in the Mines at Whitby within twelve miles of Scarbrough on the Sea [coast]; of which Sir Thomas Gower a very ingenious and learned Gentleman, much delighted in Chimicall experiments, thinks this Spaw doth eminently participate.” ⁸⁴ Apparently Wittie did not find any actual crystals of nitre or salt as one might expect in waters containing those minerals, so he explained them away as being masked by the alum. In effect, total evaporation of the waters offers no proof of their presence. ⁸⁵ Wittie does not explicitly cite Jorden here but one can imagine that Wittie also found support in Jorden’s claim that alum rose up in bullas although Jorden claims that vitriol did the same.

Although in his discussion of the taste, smell, and corporal, Wittie asserts the presence of both the spiritual and corporal form of vitriol in Spaw waters, he seems completely uninterested in trying to prove the presence of the corporal form of vitriol. Thus Wittie mentions nothing about trying to find crystals of vitriol in Spaw waters ala Jorden, while excusing why he did not find crystals of alum, nitre, or salt.

Wittie also reports the results of evaporating off the water without first removing the reddish sand.

[I]n this our Spaw water, three quarts whereof being evaporated over the fire, there will be found in the bottome three Drams of a brown brackish sediment, which being separated as was said in the first Section, two Drams will be found to be Allome, Nitre and Salt, the rest the substance of an Iron Minerall. ⁸⁶

and

three quarts of this affords, when the Rubrick is separated from it, well nigh two drams of other Minerals. ⁸⁷

Strangely, in the 1st edition, Wittie never really identifies any crystals at all or even Jorden’s “clods and lumps” of alum and vitriol. He does not mention any attempt to sublimate the crystals, according to Jorden’s technique, by bringing the waters to the state of congelation and inserting sticks of wood. He simply boiled the waters away until there was no water left. ⁸⁸ Wittie’s analysis of these sediments shows how interminably confused the state of mineral water analysis was at the time Wittie wrote. However, as we have seen, no one else really followed Jorden’s technique either during these Scarborough wars of the late 1660s and early 1670s. One has to credit Wittie with at least being the first writer on mineral waters to at least consider Jorden’s framework. And one has to credit Wittie for being quite straightforward about what he actually did and saw which is more than can be said for many writers on mineral waters.

Rubrick — Substance of Iron

It is not exactly clear what Wittie meant by describing the reddish sand as evidence of “the substance of Iron” or “the substance of an Iron Minerall.” However, it appears that Wittie was drawing heavily on de Heer to make such a claim. Wittie believed this reddish sand was basically the same thing that de Heer called rubrica or mater ferri.

And that it wants not the substance of Iron is apparent, in that after it hath been boyled a while, there appears a reddish sand, which is nothing else but mater ferri, or rubrick, or as Dr. French calls it, a Vitriol of Iron”. ⁸⁹

It is unclear how Wittie can make such a sweeping statement. In doing so, he goes further than these earlier writers (apart from Rowzee who spoke about “the Rubrick of Iron”) in claimed that rubrick/mater ferri was “the substance of an Iron Minerall” which no one up to that point had done. Not Fuchs, de Heer, and others who had simply described the sediment as mater ferri, leaving rather obscure the exact relationship between rubrica and iron. Not Fallopio who denied that a reddish earth was evidence of iron, and not Jorden who did not argue with Fallopio on this point. And not Van Helmont or French who, whatever they wrote, never made such a claim. Jorden and French did not even mention rubrick. Since, as we will see, by the end of the 17th century this recognition of rubrick as an iron mineral will be widely accepted, one must acknowledge Wittie as a forerunner in this line of thinking.

Wittie seems to have actually made this leap in identifying rubrick as the substance of iron in thinking through the results of de Heer’s analysis of the German Spaw waters.

And this [Scarborough] seems to be of like nature with the principal Spaw in Germany, called by the name of Powhont, which is wont to be carried into several Countries, and was brought into England to Count Bellemont, when he was sent Embassador from France to King James, and was found as good as at the Fountain, which might well be supposed to be done in less then ten days. And they both arise out of the bottom of a great Rock, having imbibed almost the very same Minerals, only I think this has no lead, and I suppose is not the worse for it, having also more strength of the Minerals then the Powhont : For when Doctor Paddy our Countrymen, and Doctor Heers distilled it, they found nothing but Rubrich, Ocher and a little Vitriol, as Doctor Heers himself relates, whereas three quarts of this affords, when the Rubrick is separated from it, well nigh two drams of other Minerals. ⁹⁰

“And thus also the ordinary Spaws in Germany have imbibed Vitriol, Iron, and Ochre, as Dr. Heers relates in his Spadacrene” ⁹¹

“But what have I done herein more than others that treat of such like Waters? Dr. Heers says (in his Spadacrene P. 34.) That the German Spaws consist of Iron, Vitriol, and Ochre, thereby making Iron and Vitriol distinct as I have done. So Frambesarius and Ryetius, &c.” ⁹²

[de Heer himself as well as Wittie in both editions of Scarbrough-Spaw referred to rubrick, not iron]

“For when Doctor Paddy our Countrymen, and Doctor Heers distilled it, they found nothing but Rubrich, Ocher and a little Vitriol, as Doctor Heers himself relates, whereas three quarts of this affords, when the Rubrick is separated from it, well nigh two drams of other Minerals” ⁹³

If Scarbrough Spaw waters were indeed similar to the German Spaw waters, then one would assume that Scarborough Spaw waters would have the same ingredients. So naturally Scarbrough Spaw waters would have the vitriol with which the German Spaw waters were most famously associated.

As for de Heer’s ocher, Wittie curiously did not make any claim for it in Scarbrough Spaw waters, apparently because Wittie associated ocher with the metal lead (as Agricola had) and thought that not having lead actually made Scarbrough Spaw waters superior to the German Spaw waters. So if not ochra and not vitriol, then by process of elimination, the reddish sand that Wittie found could be nothing other than de Heer’s rubrick. Wittie also believed that it was this same rubrick which colored all the stones near the Spaw a reddish color and the excrements of those who drank the water black. ⁹⁴

De Heer himself never equated this rubrick with the substance of iron or described precisely the relationship between rubrick and iron. But Wittie, putting two and two together, seems to have assumed that the rubrick MUST be the form in which iron took part in the water. Iron certainly cannot be vitriol, and ochra is associated with lead, thus iron is the only thing left it can be.

Indeed Wittie takes this assumption to such an extent that he actually misquotes de Heer to support his contention that rubrick was the substance of iron in Spa waters. Wittie notes that

It is observable that the Stones by which this [Scarbrough Spaw] water passes at the Fountains (as also in all other Spaws I read of) are of a reddish colour; as also it turns the excrements of such as drink of it into a sad green or blackish colour, both which Doctor Heers thinks to proceed from Rubrick or mater ferri, because all chalybeat Medicines after what manner soever they be taken inwardly do the like. ⁹⁵

Although De Heer does claim that it is rubrica which causes the stones to turn red, he actually claimed that it was “le fer ou ses particules, dont il y a une grande quantité dans les eaux de Spa, qui causent cet effet”, not “Rubrick or mater ferri“. ⁹⁶

In order to disprove French’s argument that it is vitriol which colors excrements black, Wittie offers a very interesting experiment.

But Doctor French, though he grants Iron may and doth cause a black tincture, yet he seems rather to impute it to the Vitrioll. For better satisfaction in this scruple both to my self and others, I made a separation of the Rubrick from the rest of the Mineralls with gall, and drank the clear water, which though I find it purges not a whit the less, yet the excretions were not changed at all, which is an experiment observed by neither of them [i.e., De Heer and French], so as it plainly appears that change of color proceeds from the Rubrick or Iron. ⁹⁷

Thus Wittie believes he confirms the rubrick theory by personally drinking the clear waters after the rubrick had been precipitated and finding that his excrements were not colored. However, as we saw above, it hardly seems that Wittie disproves French at all because French acknowledges the effect of chalybeate medicines turning excrements black. French simply claims that the iron was turned into vitriol “in the body by the acid spirits thereof, resolving the esurine Salt of the Iron, and corroding it into a Copperas”. Thus French offered no way to refute his claim unless one could figure out a way to prove that iron was not turned into vitriol in the body. Nor does Wittie test French’s claim that vitriol prepared from copper works just as well as vitriol prepared from iron in turning excrements black. Furthermore, if Wittie was out to disprove French’s point that it was vitriol that turned excrements black, one wonders why Wittie would have equated de Heer’s rubrick/mater ferri with French’s vitriol of iron. The only way to make sense of it is that Wittie did not believe French’s vitriol of iron was what Wittie and others called vitriol. In Wittie’s view, French’s vitriol of iron was not vitriol at all, it was simply the substance of iron in the water, aka rubrick/mater ferri.

Finally, as additional evidence of the corporal presence of iron, Wittie claimed that besides boiling the water one could also recover the same rubrick using gall nuts, something no earlier writer had ever claimed. He describes the procedure thus:

If half a grain of the powder of Gal [sic] be put into a quart of this water doth immediately turn it into a Clarret colour; or like unto sirrup of Violets mixed with water, whereto some drops of spirit of Vitriol hath been put; which if it be suffered to stand some hours after it is so turned with the Gall, a red sand will settle to the bottome, and the water will become clear and bright again. ⁹⁸

In a unique interpretation of the gall-nut test, Wittie claims that this “reddish sand at the bottome” found on distillation was “the very same that falls to the bottome, when it hath been colored by the gall” and thus is strictly attributable to the presence of iron in the waters. ⁹⁹

Although Wittie here does not directly attribute the initial claret color to the substance of iron in the water, by claiming that the waters turned clear and bright after the rubrick settled he suggests that it was the substance of iron which caused the initial color. Thus once again Wittie is following de Heer over other writers who had claimed it was vitriol that caused the color change with galls. For Wittie the precipitation of the rubrick, precipitates the iron in the water and thus with it all the qualities and virtues of iron in the water.

Wittie leaves unclear exactly in what way rubrick is the substance of iron. Rubrick certainly does not look like ordinary iron. Yet Wittie does not suggest it had anything to do with the pure iron of French. Or the crocus or terrestrial part of iron as he might have inferred out of Jorden. Or any of the Paracelsan principles of iron. It just was.

French’s Vitriol of Iron?

One can understand that Wittie might think this reddish sand was de Heer’s rubrick/mater ferri, but how could Wittie possibly imagine that French would call this reddish sand “a Vitriol of Iron”? That shows that Wittie did not read French carefully or did not understand French who clearly saw the vitriol of iron in the same way other writers did as a glassy crystalline substance.

Perhaps, however, Wittie had distilled the waters of French’s Yorkshire Spaw — which Wittie calls the Knaresbrough Sweet Spaw to distinguish from the Knaresborough Sulphur Spaw — using the same method he describes for Scarborough Spaw waters, found the same reddish sand at the bottom of his pan, and thus concluded that French must have been referring to the same substance. Or else Wittie simply presumed that his Scarborough waters were similar to French’s Knaresbrough Sweet Spaw waters and, confident in French’s distillation techniques and analysis, Wittie concluded that French must have also found a reddish sand in distilling Sweet Spaw waters that French called “vitriol of iron.” ¹⁰⁰ However, Wittie never mentions testing Knaresborough waters although he does claim to have known Scarbrough waters “for these 20 years together” ¹⁰¹

Perhaps Wittie meant the reddish sand was French’s colcothar of the vitriol of iron, but Wittie does not seem to buy into French’s overall analysis. For example, Wittie does not claim that this reddish sand is proof of the body of vitriol in the water which would certainly be fair within French’s framework. Wittie never mentions vitriol of iron outside this passage and indeed sticks very close to Jorden’s approach to iron and vitriol in the debates to follow. For Wittie there was nothing of vitriol in rubrick and thus there was nothing vitriol about French’s vitriol of iron. One can only conclude that Wittie believed French was guilty of a misnomer and stating that the only thing that French could have found on distilling the alternative Yorkshire Spaw waters was a reddish sand like that Wittie found in boiling Scarbrough Waters.

Invisible Minerals

Wittie also attempts to explain how Scarbrough Spaw waters could partake of all these minerals and why the corporal minerals like the rubrick, alum, nitre, and salt that settle upon evaporation of the waters appear invisible at first. To explain this, he draws directly on French’s analyses of the ways in which waters imbibe minerals, for which we have already seen French was beholden to Jorden. However, perhaps showing how poorly he understood these two writers, Wittie ends up once again butchering their theories while surely believing he was only applying what they had said to Scarbrough Spaw waters.

Thus Wittie suggests that Scarbrough Spaw waters partake of the volatile vitriol and iron that gives the waters its taste and smell “by receiving its vapour” just as water left in a brass or iron skillet acquires the taste of brass or iron. ¹⁰² Yet neither Jorden nor French claim waters acquire the taste of ordinary metals from the vapor of the metals. Indeed they positively exclude the vapor as a source. Wittie was not refuting these authors on this point. He simply did not understand their point.

Even more confused is the way Wittie completely misreads French’s argument about how waters partake of minerals by “confusion”. As we have seen French drew heavily on Jorden for this argument, as Jorden had drawn on Fallopio, and the meaning of confusion was quite clear in all these writings. All of these earlier writers understood confusion in the context of mineral waters as referring to substances mixed in the water that readily fall to the bottom if the water simply is allowed to stand still for a short period of time. Jorden also included substances that readily rise to the surface like bitumen. But Wittie completely misunderstood confusion to mean minerals so mixed that they had actually transmuted into water!

Fourthly and lastly, by confusion, changing the substance of the Minerall into water; and this is when the Minerall is of such a nature, and that it is capable of being converted into water, as Salt and Nitre will both so perfectly turn into water (and Allom also although its not so fusible as the other) a little being put to them, as if they were nothing else. And this they will do the more quickly, if the water hath imbibed a vitrioline juyce, but then take the water and evaporate it away, and the Mineralls will be found remaining in the bottome. An example whereof we have in this our Spaw water, three quarts whereof being evaporated over the fire, there will be found in the bottome three Drams of a brown brackish sediment, which being separated as was said in the first Section, two Drams will be found to be Allome, Nitre and Salt, the rest the substance of an Iron Minerall. ¹⁰³

Although Wittie confuses the term “confusion”, it appears to be an honest mistake because Wittie does seem to be drawing here on a passage in which French refers to substances that “are mixed with water so very close together, that from the mixture of them there results but one forme, neither will they ever or scarcely be separated, and such are those that will not vapour away faster than the water itself is evaporated, neither remaines in the bottom, but is all evaporated with the water”. This passage immediately precedes French’s discussion of substances that are “mixed confusedly” and is part of a rather jumbled discussion of the threefold ways that substances combined with water. French does not mention anything about the substance of the minerals changing into water, but then again French does not explain how else substances can be so mixed together with water that they cannot be separated. ¹⁰⁴

Second Edition

After the 1st edition had been sold out, Wittie decided to come out with a 2nd edition in 1667, printed this time in York. This edition was practically identical to the 1st edition but he did add some new elements, like the story of the origins of the Scarborough Spaw waters mentioned above. ¹⁰⁵

There are some interesting corrections as well, most of which seem designed to shore up Wittie’s arguments for the presence of the five minerals in Scarbrough Spaw waters.

Included in the new evidence, Wittie noted some crystals of nitre that he had not noticed at the time he wrote the 1st edition. Following Jorden, Wittie also reports solid evidence for the presence of nitre in Spaw waters in the “stiriae, or little Ice-sickles” he has observed in the fixed alom after he has laid the minerals aside for a time in a moist and cold air. “I have also sometimes observed in these Minerals, after I had laid them aside some while in a moist and cold air, that there have been Stiriae, or little Icesickles among them, which is the form of Nitre, as Naturalists say.” ¹⁰⁶ Thus Wittie follows Jorden on stiriae as proof nitre. That finding led Wittie to conclude that nitre was the most predominant mineral in Scarbrough Spaw waters. “I think Nitre to be the most predominant of all the Minerals , next to it Alome, then Vitriol , and Iron of which there is above a dram when it is separated from five quarts by the gall , and Salt to be the least” ¹⁰⁷

Wittie does not go any further than he had in the 1st edition in terms of identfying minerals in the sediments left after distilling Scarbrough Spaw waters. “Nor can they well be separated further then I have already expressed, notwithstanding many ingenious Gentlemen have indeavoured it.” ¹⁰⁸ However, he does admit in the 2nd edition that “There may perhaps be some other Minerals in this water, but they are not so discoverable; however these being most eminently conspicuous, I shall content myself with them, and leave it to others to try experiments, and make what new discoveries they can.” ¹⁰⁹

In addition to the type of evidence he provided in his 1st edition, Wittie in the 2nd edition adds some detail about the physical presence of nitre, iron-stone, alome-stone, and salt (from the sea) in the immediate neighborhood of the spring as evidence of the origins of the minerals as well as additional proof of the likelihood of the minerals in the waters. He does not note any vitriol-stone but then he has plenty of other evidence to support vitriol’s presence in the waters. ¹¹⁰

“Besides what hath been said, there are other grounds to evince a probability that these are the minerals which this water hath imbibed. First for Nitre ; The Cliffe at the bottom whereof the Spring breaks out, has much Nitre in it, which discovers itself in veins all along, and eminently within eight yards of the Well, where in hot and dry weather it sweats out, and is white as if it were snow.” ¹¹¹

“Secondly, for Iron, there are many stones of Rubrick; besides much of the earth that falls, being washed down by the sea, turns to Iron-stone, as hard as Iron itself, and fusible being put into a Smiths forge, as I have sometimes found upon trial : There is a piece of the Ciff within an hundred paces of the Spaw, thus converted in a very few years to an Iron-stone, as much as would load three or four Carts.” ¹¹²

“Thirdly, In the Cliffe and Rocks hereabouts, there is some Alome-stone, such as Alome is made of.” ¹¹³

“Fifthly, as to Salt, I think it borrowes it from the sea, with which the Spring is sometimes overflown, for I find no Symbole of any Mine of fossile salt thereabouts.” ¹¹⁴

Blurring the line between vitriol and iron

Most of Wittie’s attention to new supporting evidence is focused on iron and vitriol in which he starts to see the two as intricately interlinked. For example there is an interesting addition to the 2nd edition that will receive a lot of attention in later analyses of Spa-like waters. Apparently some time after the first edition of Scarborough Spaw came out, Sir John Anderson of Braughton in Lincolnshire informed Wittie of some interesting phenomena that Wittie apparently had been hitherto unaware of.

This may be found true by any one that shall make tryal thereof soon after it is taken out of the Fountain ; but being carryed abroad there will be found a loss of Mineralls, according to the distance from the fountain, especially if it be carried in oaken vessels, in the bottom whereof there will be found a yellowish sediment like unto Crocus Martis, and of a stiptick quality, which is supposed to be the Chalybeate part of the Mineralls, separated by the oaken vessell, and furthered by agitation in the carryage.

This was first observed and sent to me by Sir John Anderson of Broughton in Lincolnshire Baronet, a very learned and worthy Gentleman, to whom much is due for his indefatigable pains and studiousness, in searching out the parts, and observing the vertue and nature of this water, both in himself and others.

He also observed that at Broughton, which is not forty miles from Scarbrough, the water would not curdle milk as it doth at Scarbrough, and that it doth not receive such a deep tincture from the gall; nor is it found to have such a pleasant acidity as at the fountain; which certainly must proceed from a loss of the Vitrioline spirits, of which it doth eminently participate, which being more subtil then the rest of the mineralls are evaporated. ¹¹⁵

That Wittie would not have noticed this phenomena in all the years he had been working with Scarborough waters seems fantastic. In the 1st edition he response to the question “whether this Spaw-water will endure to be carried into the Country at distance, and keep its vertue”, he answers “It is best when it is drunk at the Fountain, for I think some of its SPirits do evaporate being carried far, it seemng to have a purer azure colour, and a more acid tste also at the Fountain ; yet it may be carried many miles without any sensible decay of its strength and operation, being constantly brought by the Fishermen in Caggs, as far as York, and Hull, which is thirty miles, yea often many miles further. It hath also been carried to London, and was found good: I have drunk of it after it had been ten days int he Cagge, and have always found it to work very well…” ¹¹⁶ It seems either he was not very observant or else he had earlier simply chosen to emphasize the transportability of Scarborough waters. Yet it also shows that Wittie had no qualms about changing his mind if presented with new evidence. Furthermore the story adds further support to Wittie’s argument for both the corporal form of iron as well as the spiritual form of vitriol.

Vitrioline spirits

Anderson’s report also seems to have pushed Wittie to rethink what happened in the reaction between Scarborough Spaw waters and gall-nut powder. The loss of the water’s pleasant acidity and ability to curdle milk confirmed that the volatile vitrioline spirits must have escaped the water. Wittie, perhaps following Anderson, also concluded that the it was this same loss of vitrioline spirits which caused the water to “not receive such a deep tincture from the gall”.

But this loss of tincture raises the question about what causes this tincture in the first place — a subject Wittie had not explicitly considered in the first edition — and what happened to the spirits when gall nuts were added. In seeking to find a solution to these challenging questions, Wittie totally changed his mind on the color change involved. Where he once saw claret and reddish, he now sees dark and black.

In the 1st edition Wittie claims that a small amount of gall would caused the Spaw water to immediately turn a claret color and after standing some hours a red sand settles to the bottom which he calls rubrick and then water becomes clear again. But in the 2nd edition, he claims the waters turns immediately a DARK claret color and after standing some hours the water become

black and dark, that one cannot see to the bottom of the vessell: but then if you take up the vessel gently, and set it hastily down again with a knock upon the Table, and so break its minute parts, a blackish sediment will fall to the bottom, soft to the touch, and the water will become clear and bright and again, which may by inclination be separated ; so as from some quarts of Spaw-water not above two or three spoonfulls will be left at the bottom with the sediment, which being evaporated leaves a blackish power, a little sharp to the taste, which I take to be the Iron mineral with a little touch of the Vitriol; or if you please fr. or vitriolum ferrugineum.

I have often used this in Medicines instead of prepared steel, and have found it in all things to answer my expectation; yea & I think it far to be preferred before any preparation of chalybs we have in our ordinary Apothecarie shops, being more opening, especially joyned with Vitriol, as here it is. ¹¹⁷

Wittie calls this blackish sediment by the novel names “ferrum vitriolatum” or “vitriolum ferrugineum” to suggest the presence of “a little touch of the Vitriol” with “the Iron mineral” but he offers no more solid proof that this sediment with galls contained vitriol in the 2nd edition than he offered proof that it did not contain vitriol in the 1st edition.

And yet in the passage above, Wittie continues to claim that this ferrum vitriolatum/vitriolum ferrugineum is also the same as the reddish sand he called rubrick/mater ferri and French calls Vitriol of Iron, to which he now adds the yellow sediment found in the oaken vessels.

“And that it wants not the substance of Iron is apparent, in that after it hath been boyled or put into oaken vessels for some while , there appears a reddish sand, inclining to yellow , which is nothing else but mater ferri, or rubrick, or as Dr. French calls it a Vitriol of Iron , and this is also discoverable by putting a little powder of Gall to it, as I hinted before” ¹¹⁸

Indeed, Wittie blurs the line between iron and vitriol even more in the 2nd edition in modifying the passage on how mineral waters partake of substances by confusion, asserting the presence of both iron AND vitriol in the sediment left after boiling whereas in the 1st edition he had claimed only iron. ¹¹⁹

Fourthly and lastly, by confusion, changing the substance of the Mineral into water; and this is when the Mineral is of such a nature, and that it is capable of being converted into water, as Salt and Nitre will both so perfectly turn into water (and Allom also although its not so fusible as the other) a little being put to them, as if they were nothing else. And this they will do the more quickly, if the water hath imbibed a vitrioline juyce, but then take the water and evaporate it away, and the Mineralls will be found remaining in the bottome. An example whereof we have in this our Spaw water, five quarts whereof being evaporated over the fire, when it is newly taken out of the Spring, there will be found in the bottome of the vessel an ounce of an ash-coloured brackish sediment, as I said before in the first Section, a considerable part whereof is Nitre, Allome, and Salt, the rest the substance of Iron and Vitriol. ¹²⁰

In the 2nd edition of The Scarborough Spaw, Wittie similarly changes slightly the other description of the sediment left after boiling.

Every five quarts of this Spring water taken clear out of the fountain, contains a body of mineralls, viz. of those five I named before, about an ounce in quantity ; (in very dry years I have sometimes found more,) which may be extracted either by destilling off all the water ; or otherwise by evaporating the water away in a skellet over the fire, the Mineralls remaining at the bottom which cleave to the skellet , as if it were parched meal, not without difficulty to be scraped off , being of a compound taste , somewhat bitter , salt , sharp and stiptick, and of an ash colour. ¹²¹

Wittie would seem to suggest in this passage that the iron AND vitriol precipitate out together, much like the nitre, alum, and salt do, and thus he is acknowledging the presence of vitriol as well as iron in the reddish sand that he called rubrick/mater ferri, or French’s vitriol of iron.

It is not really clear why Wittie would acknowledge the corporal presence of vitriol in the sediment, but his change of heart undoubtedly had something to do with his volte-face on the what happened when galls were added to Scarbrough Spaw waters.

In the first edition Wittie reported the waters took a claret color with galls. One supposes that in this color choice Wittie might have been influenced by Deane and French who, along with Stanhope, reported a claret color for the Tewhit Well water, in contrast to the writers on Continental waters who described this as a black color. Thus Wittie’s black color here put Scarbrough Spaw waters more in line with Continental waters rather than the Knaresborough Sweet Spaw waters.

In the first edition, Wittie was not so concerned with the color change and does not try to explain it. One supposes Wittie saw it as self-explanatory that the claret color of the waters was due to the reddish sand being in the water before it fell to the bottom and thus had to do with the presence of the corporal form of iron in the water. Describing the sediment as a reddish sand was certainly rather novel as no previous writer had even described the sediment let alone describe it as a reddish sand. But for Wittie it must have made sense that the sediment would have been the same kind of reddish sand he found on boiling. After all, de Heer had attributed the color change with galls as well as the black color of the feces to the presence of iron in the waters. Indeed Wittie had used this assertion that the reddish sand was solely rubrick to prove that it was the iron, not vitriol, which tinged excrement.

But in the second edition, Wittie has to deal with vitrioline spirits and how to reconcile what happened to the waters when galls were added and when they were transported, since in both cases the waters become clear, insipid liquid. If the loss of the waters virtues on transportation is due to the escape of vitrioline spirits, what happens to those vitrioline spirits when gall nuts were added? He seems to have rejected any notion that the mere addition of galls could have driven off the vitrioline spirits. So if the vitiroline spirits did not escape and they are not still in the water, there is only one other place they could have gone — in the sediment which falls when gall nuts are added.

Although the story of the loss of minerals on transportation provided additional evidence for the corporal form of iron and the spiritual form of vitriol, Wittie found himself hard pressed to produce solid evidence for the presences of the corporal form of vitriol. Perhaps some of this focus on vitriol was because Wittie realized he had not offered ANY evidence for the corporal form of vitriol except the rather weak conjecture that the azure color of the water was due to the corporal forms of vitriol, iron, and alum.

“Fourthly, the deep tincture which this water takes from gall, far more than any other than I have known or read of, denotes it highly to partake of Vitriol, which I think unites itself with all the Minerals inseparably, for as much as which way soever you extract them, the acidity is very predominant. And I judge its plentiful imbibition of the esurine spirits and salt of Vitriol, makes it more largely to corrode the tincture of the other Minerals through which it passes.” ¹²²

We see here as well how assertion about corporal vitriol helps Wittie move beyond merely claiming an acid taste to playing up the acidity of the waters which actually strengthens his argument for the presence of so many other minerals in the water.

The creation of an entirely new scenario for explaining the reaction with galls in turn demanded an entirely new set of colors. The line between claret and black color, between a reddish sand and a blackish sediment was not so fine that an observer could go either way. It is also hardly likely that Wittie was claiming that the waters sometimes appear claret and other times black, the earth sometimes reddish and sometimes blackish. No, the colors were chosen to fit the theory.

<snip>

Enter William Simpson

When Robert Wittie came out with the second edition of Scarborough Spaw in 1667, little did he suspect the controversy that it would stir up. After all, the first edition of 1660 had been very well received, and for the revised edition he had simply added some updated evidence on the medicinal benefits of taking the spaw waters and a few other observations. As a well-respected physician with over thirty years experience treating patients at Scarborough, little could Wittie imagine that somebody like William Simpson could cause him so much grief. But for Simpson, a young man on the make, the second edition provided the perfect context for stirring up a debate about the contents of the mineral spring waters that would have ramifications far beyond Scarborough.

Details on Simpson’s life are rather sketchy. William Simpson (ca. 1637 – 1680) was the son of a brewer in York who graduated with a B.A. from Cambridge in 1657-8. Afterwards, without earning an M.D., he set up a medical practice in York. Simpson married Anne Sykes, daughter of William Sykes (d. 1652), some time before 1665. They had at least one child, a son Jacob who became a surgeon in Leeds and died 14 August 1738 aged 73 years. ¹²³

The parallels between the Wittie-Simpson debate and the 1620s argument between Van Helmont and Henri de Heer are most striking. Like Wittie’s book, the first edition of de Heer’s Spadacrene had come out to great acclaim in 1614 and when that run had sold out de Heer came out with a 2nd edition in 1622, just two years before the debate erupted in 1624. Thus in both cases the debate did not erupt until many years after the initial publication. As Helmont had been an admirer of Paracelsus, Simpson “referred his readers above all to Paracelsus and too the ‘profound’ van Helmont”. ¹²⁴

Both De Heer and Wittie were well read, diligent, and thorough, and neither book really contained anything that readers would have found controversial. Yet Van Helmont and Simpson challenged practically every assertion of their seniors. Both accused their predecessors of getting the ingredients wrong. For Van Helmont, there was only one active ingredient in the Spaw waters and that was vitriol of iron. For Simpson, Scarborough Spaw was an aluminous spring with nothing of vitriol, nitre, or salt, and only a slight touch of the minera of iron. And, in the end, both questioned the competency of their seniors. The seniors reacted aggressively and immediately in print.

Poynter has seen the conflict between Wittie and Simpson rooted, above all in

the character of the contestants themselves, both Yorkshiremen, rugged, hot-tempered and argumentative; Witty representing age, attached to tradition but ready to compromise, a man of the world with a marked sense of humour; Simpson the eager and impatient youth, earnest and sceptical, anxious to see the ancients swept away and the ‘new philosophy’ enthroned. ¹²⁵

Whither Medicine?

The stakes, at least at the time, seemed much higher, for in England in the late 1660s there was an intense debate between traditional and chemical physicians over who would control the direction of medicine. And Wittie promoted himself as a staunch defender of Galenism, while Simpson saw himself as a staunch defender of the “Chymical Practice of Physick”. ¹²⁶

It is not clear when and how the Paracelsian approach to medicine started having an impact on England. Allen Debus has argued that “for the most part, the Paracelsian theories were rejected in England until after the influence of Van Helmont became paramount in the 1650s”. ¹²⁷ Charles Webster, however, has argued for the earlier acceptance of Paracelsus in England. ¹²⁸

Regardless of when Paracelsus was accepted, it is a fact that “the 1640’s and 1650’s saw the publication of an unprecedented number of Paracelsian works in England. They also witnessed the rapid publication of translations of the works of Johann Baptista van Helmont. By the Restoration, Helmontianism was firmly entrenched among a group of medical practitioners and their publicists. Champions of the College of Physicians felt sufficiently threatened to engage in a war of pamphlets with the Helmontians. Meanwhile, the Helmontians, patronized by the Court and prominent men of affairs in Church and State seemed to go from strength to strength”. ¹²⁹ And Helmontian influence reached it height in the 1660s just as Wittie was publishing his Scarbrough Spaw. ¹³⁰

As early as 1651 Wittie had become engaged in these debates between the Galenic and chymical physicians as the English translator of works of his friend James Primerose, whose Popular Errours: Or the Errours of the People in Physick published in Latin in 1638 was one of the opening salvos from the Galenists. In this book Primerose claimed that

‘Chymistry is not an art of its own kind, but meerly a preparation of medicaments, and therefore in proper speaking belongs to that part of Physicke called Pharmacie, and so ought not to be treated of but in Pharmacie’. ¹³¹

According to Debus,

By 1665 the Helmontian chemical physicians of London felt so alienated from the fellows of the [more conservative] College of Physicians that they prepared a declaration indicating their intention to organize their own society. This proposal gained surprising support from influential members of the court, but the ignorance and illiteracy of some of the chemists surely contributed to the collapse of their project. ¹³²

“The year of the Great Plague is also to be remembered in the history of English medicine for the extraordinary number of pamphlets published in the dispute between the Helmontians and the Galenists”. ¹³³ “The Helmontians generally based themselves on van Helmont’s treatise, The Tomb of the Plague, which was accessible in the English translation by John Chandler”. ¹³⁴

However, although this was “their long-sought test”, the Great Plague of 1665 did not really aid their case, because

while most of the College physicians fled to the safety of the countryside with their rich patients, the Helmontians remained in London where their ranks were decimated by the dread disease. The failure of the Helmontians to halt the plague and their diminished numbers resulted in a correspondingly lessened influence after 1665. In their stead the apothecaries were to rise to new heights of influence. ¹³⁵

One of the Chymical writers during the Great Plague was none other than William Simpson. “In 1665 Simpson published his Zenexton anti-pestilentiale, which — drawing upon Helmontian theories — focused on ferments as the main agents in nature. Simpson maintained that the plague was produced by ‘a virulent and contagious Ferment conceiv’d from without or within the body, seizing upon the vital Archeus or spirit of life'” ¹³⁶

Historians have seen the Scarborough debates as an offshoot of these Galenist-Helmontian debates, much as the weapon-salve controversy paved the way for Van Helmont’s feud with de Heer over Spa waters. ¹³⁷

Simpson entered into the Scarborough wars believing that before long the “Chymical Practice of Physick” would triumph.

As to this Chymical Practice of Physick, of whose vindication I have succinctly wrote, many Physicians now at this time (and more and more daily) do make it their way of administrating help to the Sick; so that (doubtless) in a little time, it will gain much ground, upon the World, and will at length naturally worm out the Galenical Method. ¹³⁸

This shows in Hydrologia Chymica in Simpson’s heavy criticism of Wittie’s understanding of the medicinal virtues of his principles based on Galen’s humors. ¹³⁹

Wittie took Simpson at his word that he was actually engaged in a conspiracy to undermine “the established system of medical education”. ¹⁴⁰ The way Wittie tells it,

About four or five years ago at the most, Sir Simpson began to set up for himself in the Practice of Physick; and about the same time another also, whom he glances at somewhere in his Book. These had a Project to overturn the Rational Practice of Physick in this City and County of York, and reduce all to the Chymical Way. In order to which, in all Companies, and more especially at the Coffee-Houses, they were constantly declaiming against the Medicines of the Shops, which are prepared according to the Dispensatory established by the Law of the Land, and magnifying their own Medicines, by which they pretended to be able to do wonders. ¹⁴¹

He [Simpson] brags much of the Chymical Way gaining ground in the World, and that at length it will worm out the Galenical Method…Nothing does better conduce to duration than Method and Order. This Galenical Method has stood these 1500 years, ever since the Reign of the Emperour Antonius the Philosopher; whom Galen had the Honour to serve as his Physician; and I see no Reason why it may not hold out 1500 years more. ¹⁴²

Wittie and his fellow Galenists were determined to stave off this assault.

But there were not wanting others of my Learned Brethren, who together with my self, did judge it our duty Rem populi tractare, and to stand up in defence both of the lives of our Friends, and the Rational Method… ¹⁴³

Especially I my self did more frequently and publickly appear among the Ingenious Gentlemen, that meet at the Coffee-Houses to countermine their design, and did speed accordingly. ¹⁴⁴

Wittie also reported a couple of personal run-ins he had had with Simpson before the Scarbrough debates.

Another difference there happened betwixt Sir Simpson and my self. One Robert Beford a very ingenious Lock-Smith about 3 or 4 years ago, was my Patient in a Dropsie, which I had managed about 10 dayes, not without great hopes of a Cure: In which Disease (I thank God) I have often performed many good Cures. On the sudden he told me, he would take no more Physick, saying, he was weak, and Physick would kill him; I told him he must assuredly die of his Disease, if there he left me. At length I understood that Sir Simpson was called to him (by a good wife) who had put this whimsie in his head, and promised a Cure within a Fortnight, by his Chymical Medicines, which he said were not Physick. But the Patient grew every day worse, I having a respect for such an ingenious Workman, sent to Mr. Simpson (whom I had not seen before) desiring him to meet me at the Apothecaries Shop, and demanded wherefore he had dispararged my Medicines, having not see my Bills, which were extant in the Apothecaries Shop. He said he did not disparage my Medicines but my Method, to wit, the Galenical Way, in which it was not possible to cure a Dropsie. I told him I had cured many a Dropsie in that Method, before he knew what was Latine for the Word. And withal I told him, that if ever he intended to take any Degree in Physick in the University of Cambridge, I expected he should visit me, and then he should give an account of that unjust Calumination. I also told him that the man would assuredly die, which came to pass within 3 weeks after his first Call; complaining of a most horrible heat and corrosion of his Belly, from the heat of his Medicines (as the man himself did conceive) especially from some Pills, that he gave him, bewailing the time that he had left me. ¹⁴⁵

However, curiously when it came to Scarbrough Spaw waters, the two men did not really argue over the waters’ medicinal virtues or procedures for employing. Indeed, Wittie notes that Simpson never does challenge Wittie in this area. ¹⁴⁶ Rather the argument comes down to who has a better interpretation of why the waters work the way they do. The Scarbrough Spaw wars come down to a question of chymistry, who has the better explanation of the chymistry of the waters.

Similarly, there does not appear a huge gulf in the authorities to whom the authors turn. Both are quite willing to cite anybody or nobody in order to support their point.

In Hydrologia Chymica published in 1669, Simpson refers to all the great “Chymical Authors” including Amynsicht, Crollius, Beguinius, Libavius, Paracelsus, Hartmann, Rhenanus, Quercetane, Helmont, Isaac and Holland. He particularly admired “the ingenuous Zvelfer” who “of all that write Chymical Recipes, the very best and most solid Writer, that I meet with”. ¹⁴⁷

But above all, Simpson admired the “the profound Helmont”. ¹⁴⁸

And as for Helmont, he goes so far out of the road of vulgar Chymists, as that he scarce gives any Recipes; what he gives is Sparsim, and wrapt up occasionally amongst his Writings…so that a Physician (if he expect any help by him [i.e., Helmont]) ought to read him often, and to compare his Writings, and thereby he will find no small Light to guide him in his Chymical Researches. And though Helmont be accus’d, for defacing the Galenical Structure of Physick; and not setting up a better in its place, by giving (as it were) a Chymical Dispensatory: yet he is not much to be blam’d herein, if we consider, first, That he not only pulls down the Galenical Theory, but rears up a better, whereby Diseases may the better be known, from their Essential Causes, and by their natural Symptoms and Products… ¹⁴⁹

However, as we will see, Simpson like French before him draws on De Heer as well as Van Helmont.

For his part, although Wittie perhaps shied away from Van Helmont whom he does not cite in Scarbrough Spaw, he did turn to Van Helmont in Pyrologia Mimica.

As for Paracelsus, Simpson exclaims to Wittie, “You are mistaken, (Sir) I pretend not to be a Paracelsan in Physiology, not much valuing his Theory; your self quote him five times, I may say, I think for my once.” ¹⁵⁰ While drawing on the authority of Paracelsus, Wittie also saw time to use the negative example of Paracelsus to chastize Simpson’s braggadocio. “Paracelsus in his Preface to the Book that bears the Title Paragranum, ranting highly against the Method of Physick delivered by the Ancients, extols his own to the Stars, in such a multitude of vain brags, as would be tedious to recite” ¹⁵¹

Medicinal debates not key

Wittie claims Simpson cannot get the medicinal virtues from just alum

Simpson follows medicinal virtues and practices of Wittie but claims alum can do just as well.

“To all these I might adde, the singular Vertues which are evident in the Water for Hypocondriack Diseases, the Stone, and advancing the Tome of the Stomach, both in point of Appetite and Digestion, do sufficiently mae out the presence of them both [i.e., both iron and vitriol]” ¹⁵²

Wittie asserts there is no way that all of the virtues that Simpson admits that Scarbrough Spaw has come all be due to an esurine aluminous salt. ¹⁵³

In Pyrologia Mimica, Wittie does agree with Simpson that the vitriol in Scarbrough Spaw waters is not from copper because the waters are not vomitive. “Now this Water thus impregnated within Vitrioline Odour or Vapour, since it has no Emetick or Vomiting Quality joyned with it, I account it to be of the Nature of that which is made out of Iron (not of Copper) and therefore I called it Vitriolum Ferrugineum” ¹⁵⁴[To which, Simpson curiously does not respond.]

First Beach Meeting

The argument between Wittie and Simpson over Scarbrough waters began in the town of Scarbrough in the summer of 1667. ¹⁵⁵ As to what actually happened in Scarbrough, there are two different versions — Wittie’s and Simpson’s.

The way Simpson tells it, after coming across the 2nd edition of Wittie’s book, he had serious doubts about Wittie’s five principles. To test Wittie’s minerals and “make a serious scrutiny into the real Principles of this Spaw…yet without any intention or thought of denying them all, but to hold to those which we might find demonstrable by experiment.” “For which intention, I went purposely to Scarbrough, and took along with me several Liquours and Spirits, by which I thought, I might best essay the native Ingredients of the water, I took also along with me a solution of the five Ingredients, according to the Doctors supposition, each of them being in several glasses, viz. a solution of Nitre, Allom, Vitriol of Copper, Vitriol of Iron, and common Salt, and desired him [Wittie], for evincing the truth of his Principles, that he would please to mix these in such a proportion, in a glass of fresh water, as might resemble the taste of the Spaw water, and would equally with it answer the same coagulations and solutions”. ¹⁵⁶

The way Wittie describes the same sequence in a section marked with the side note “Mr. S. at Scarbrough”,

He [Simpson] tells, that he made a Journey to Scarbrough, where in truth he so behaved himself, that he had found a very rough welcome, if I had not prevented it: But it may very well be chronicled that he was at Scarbrough, where I am almost confident he was never two dayes before in his life; notwithstanding his great pretences to treat of this Subject. He tells what discourse we had at the Well, where what he got by it, I appeal to the Gentlemen that were present, and shall now again further make out. ¹⁵⁷

Wittie adds,

His design he said was to enquire, whether I had made a true report of the Mineral Ingredients of the Water or no, and at the very first he resolved that they were not there: I asked him if he had evaporated the Water to observe the Sediment, he said no. Then I told him it was not just to pass a Sentence, till the party arraigned was heard to speak for himself. When he came to the Well (I then being absent) he began to talk among a great many Gentlemen that were drinking the Waters, at the same rate that now he writes; and pulled out of his Pockets half a score Glasses : The truth is the Gentlemen at the first took him to be a Jugler, but perceiving his errand, sent me word. ¹⁵⁸

Before we explore further Simpson’s demonstration, we should acknowledge that it is not at all clear what exactly was in Simpson’s five solutions and we will seriously question what is in some of these solutions. But Wittie did not dispute that Simpson had something that people might call salt, nitre, alum, vitriol of iron, and vitriol of copper dissolved in the water in the bottles. Indeed, Wittie seemed to have believed that Simpson had some standard preparation of these minerals that one might get from any apothecary. What he does deny, as we will see, is that Simpson’s artificial preparations had any semblance to the forms of these minerals found in Scarborough Spaw and other mineral waters. But even if Wittie was satisfied that Simpson had what he said, it still is not at all clear what those minerals were in a modern sense.

Taste test

On the beach, Simpson proceeded to challenge Wittie’s assertion that Scarborough Spaw waters partook of the five minerals.

So when we came to the Well, I desired an essay might be made of the mixture of those five solutions in fresh water, to try if we could imitate the Spaw thereby, he told the company that I expected from those Minerals which had undergone the fire, to see the same as from those which had not passed the fire; I answer’d, they were naked and bare solutions of the Mineral Ingredients, made without any stress of fire, and therefore might well be taken to make experiment withall; when he seemingly refus’d it, I called for a porrenger of fresh water, and put some of each of these solutions in, tasting it after each distinct Ingredient was put in. ¹⁵⁹

Wittie questioned Simpson.

[H]e told me he had brought the solutions of the Five Minerals before mentioned in fresh Water, with mixing of which he would make an Essay if he could imitate the Spaw. I told him that the Water had passed under the Trial of very many Learned and Ingenious Gentlemen, both Physitians and others, and I doubted not but would abide his: and further I said that Nature was more compleat in its Operations, than to be fully imitated by Art. ¹⁶⁰

Simpson claimed “The Vitriol of Iron made it taste very like the sweet Spaw at Knarsbrough.“ ¹⁶¹ Simpson may have acknowledged, as he does later in print, that he was following on this point “the ingenuous Dr. French” who had written extensively on “the sweet spaw”.

That this Spaw is Vitrioline, and that only, is demonstrable by matter of fact, viz. Take a Dram of Vitriol of Iron, otherwise called Salt of Steel, which dissolve in a pint of Spring water; of which two or three spoonfuls mixed with a glass of fresh Spring water, gives the exact taste of that Spaw. ¹⁶²

Simpson makes clear in later writings that he, like Thomas Browne before him, meant the substance commonly referred to as “Salt of Steel”. ¹⁶³

According to Wittie, he and the other gentlemen present apparently did not buy this taste test. The solution with vitriol of iron did not taste like the sweet Spaw to them! “[F]or my own part I could not say, that there was the least resemblance of it to that Water, which I know as well as he, for these 20 years together”. ¹⁶⁴

To replicate the taste of Scarborough waters based on Wittie’s principles, to the solution of the vitriol of iron, Simpson added the solutions of nitre, salt, and mineral allom.

“The Vitriol of Iron made it taste very like the sweet Spaw at Knarsbrough ; a little of the solution of Nitre and Salt, did not much alter the taste thereof; to which a solution of Mineral Allom was added, which did not yet bring it any thing near the taste of that Spaw, comparing them both together, nor did the addition of Vitriol mend the matter”. The last “Vitriol” added was presumably the vitriol of copper because he began with the “Vitriol of Iron”. ¹⁶⁵

Simpson seemed to believe that this simple taste test proved that Scarbrough Spaw waters did not partake of the five minerals that Wittie claimed.

Gall-nut test

But to clinch the proof, Simpson then proceeded to test his artificial Scarborough Spaw water with a solution of gall-nuts.

[U]pon this mixture we poured the solution of Galls, which presently, upon the account of the solution of Allom and Vitriol, became thick and muddy like ink, and became clear from the same reason, with the addition of some drops of the spirit of Vitriol, not that the solution of Nitre or Salt, contributed any thing to this attrimentous curdling, nor yet was alone from the solution of Vitriol, but also from the solution of Allom, which as to changing colours by the addition of Gauls or solution thereof, doth equally answer the solution of Vitriol. ¹⁶⁶

Here Simpson states emphatically that both “the solution of Allom” and “the solution of Vitriol” similarly become “thick and muddy like ink” upon adding “the solution of Galls”. As with taste test, Simpson again refers to “Vitriol” without stating whether he means “vitriol of iron” or “vitriol of copper”. But unlike the taste test, one cannot infer what Simpson means here. Does he mean both “vitriol of iron” and “vitriol of copper” tinge with galls? Or is he once again intending just “vitriol of copper” as he did with the taste test? Since he positively denies that the solutions of nitre and salt would tinge with galls, it appears that Simpson is stating that both “vitirol of iron” and “vitriol of copper” similarly tinge with galls.

The paragraph that follows adds some more details.

But to come a little closer to the matter, I took a little Spaw water in one porrenger, and a little solution of the Calx of Allom in another, upon both of which I poured the solution of Gauls (made in fair water and filtred) and forthwith both waters, viz. the Spaw water, and the water of Allom, became coloured alike of a deep purple and from thence (having a little more solution of Gauls added) became blackish and opacous almost like Ink, by which I demonstrated to the Doctor, what he would not otherwise believe, had not his eyes convinced him, viz. that a purple colour, and from thence a dark opacity, like Ink, might be made from another liquor than Vitriol or Iron; to which he solely ascribes the changing of colours by a Gaul put thereinto, making that one of his demonstrations, why Iron is an Ingredient in the Spaw; which by an occuler testimony I convinced him, that the changing of colour by a Gaul was not any sufficient evidence, that Iron Vitriol must needs be an Ingredient thereof, because the bare solution of the Calx of Allom, having nothing of Iron or Vitriol in it, doth give exactly the same alteration of colour. ¹⁶⁷

“What is it that gives an inky smell, or rather makes Ink? Is it not a solution of Vitriol precipitated, or made opacous by the addition of Galls, whose stipticity makes the diaphaneous texture of the Particles in the vitrioline solution desert their former posture, and muster in a confus’d opacous manner, filling those interstices with solid Particles, which before were kept transparent by the fluid parts of Water equally contempered, and not a vapour of Vitriol, since there wants an heat in either Agent which might procure a vapour.” ¹⁶⁸

This paragraph is even less clear as to what Simpson believes tinges with galls other than Spaw waters and his solution of alum. He could be simply reiterating that both a solution of “vitriol of iron” and a solution of “vitriol of copper” could tinge with galls as well. But is he saying that there might be some other solution of iron, other than a solution of the “vitriol of iron”, that would tinge with galls, while denying that any solution of copper other than a solution of “vitriol of copper” would not? One might possibly infer this fron this passage but Simpson does not explicitly say this.

Simpson does not specifically state that he demonstrated the gall test directly with any of the other test solutions other than the solution of the calx of alum. However, Wittie suggests he did so. As Wittie tells the story,

He [i.e., Simpson] then proceeded to try what Tincture the solution of Gall would give to the solutions of the Minerals he had brought, thereby to imitate the Water of the Spaw, and he found that the solutions of Alome and Vitriol, would both take the like Tincture from Gall… ¹⁶⁹

It is not clear at this point whether Wittie is describing the events on the beach or simply reacting to what Simpson wrote in Hydrologia Chymica. One notes that Wittie is as vague as Simpson was on whether it was the solution of the “vitriol of iron” or the “vitriol of copper” or both that would “take the like Tincture from Gall”. The fact that Wittie refers to “both” suggests it was only two of the solutions. Since Wittie elsewhere rejected that the “salt of Steel” was the same as his principle of vitriol — otherwise Scarbrough Spaw waters would be merely chalybeate waters — we presume that Wittie believed the other solution was what Simpson called the “vitriol of copper”. [need cite? where does Wittie refer to chalybeate waters?]

Wittie’s Take

Wittie and Simpson had a totally different view about the outcome of this demonstration. Simpson claims that Wittie was totally convinced [need quote?], while Wittie says he dismissed the demonstration as totally meaningless.

He [i.e., Simpson] then proceeded to try what Tincture the solution of Gall would give to the solutions of the Minerals he had brought, thereby to imitate the Water of the Spaw, and he found that the solutions of Alome and Vitriol, would both take the like Tincture from Gall, and so become clear again by the putting of Spirit of Vitriol; By which saw W.S. I demonstrated to the Doctor what he would not otherwise believe, had not his eyes convinced him; viz. that the bare solution of Calx of Alome having nothing of Iron and Vitriol doth give exactly the same alteration; and hence he infers, that this Mutation comes from the Alome, and that there is nothing of Vitriol in it. ¹⁷⁰

To this, Wittie responded

What a Crack he gives, and yet he bursts not! why, there is not a word in my Book of Scarbrough Spaw, that could in any reason lead him to make out such a demonstration; I said indeed and so I do confidently say still, that it is the Vitriol alone, that being dissolved by its Mineral Juyce in this Water, takes the Tincture from the Gall. Ay (says he) but the solution of Alome will do so too; therefore there is no Vitriol but Alome. This is a pure non sequitur, especially if we consider that this solution he talks of, was made of Calcined Alome as himself confesses in the next, P. 39. in these words, Seeing a solution of calcined Alome will do the same. And so again, P. 40. By all which it appeared that the solution of the Calcined Stone of Alome admitted the same precipitations, &c. with that of the Spaw. Now I pray with what Logick can he argue from Calcined Stone Alome to this Aluminous Juyce that is here in the Water? Had he tried whether the Crude Stone of Alome would qualifie simple Spring-Water to take a Tincture from Gall, or impart any sapor to Water, he had acted according to reason. ¹⁷¹

Wittie distorts what Simpson says here. He does not deny iron or vitriol based on the gall-nut test, rather Simpson merely asserts that the calcined alum stone will react the same as iron and vitriol, thus calcined alum stone cannot be ruled out.

For his part, Wittie rejects anything Simpson has to say about calcined stone of alum as irrelevant to Scarbrough Spaw waters since quite different from the aluminous juyce of which the waters partake. Thus Wittie accepts that Simpson’s calx of alum could indeed tinge with galls, but not the alum as present in Scarbrough Spaw waters. Against Simpson’s “proof” that a solution of alum would tinge with galls just like Spaw waters, Wittie argued that Simpson’s calx of alum was not like the aluminous mineral in Spaw waters. He rejected Simpson’s claim that his solutions of alum, etc., had any relevance to mineral waters because the “mature” minerals he was using with unlike the “immature” minerals in Spaw waters.

I also said, That he could not parallel those Minerals which had undergone the Fire, with those that were in the Water that had not passed the Fire, not judge of the one by the other. He said they were naked and bare solutions made without Fire; though now in this Narrative, he says, They were made without S T R E S S of Fire, and so might well be taken to make experiment withal. But I pray what have we to do here with Fire at all, since there is none in the Spaw, which certainly must alter the case? Besides what he means by S T R E S S O F F I R E I know not, it’s an ambiguous expression; even a small degree of heat will serve to unlock a Mineral, and dissolve its compact substance; making it speak sometimes that which of it self it would not do. And further I told him, that the Accidents to be observed in the Water were such, as did proceed from the dissolution of Minerals and Metals, not yet come to maturation; which of necessity must be far different from those of his, which were made out of perfect Minerals and Metals, as I have evinced already out of the Testimony of Paracelsus (lib 3 de Nat. Aq.) which I mention’d in my reply to P.3. of his Book, and am not willing to repeat. ¹⁷²

Possible Oyl of Tartar Test

At this point there is a disconnect between the two accounts. Simpson claims he tested “fresh Spaw water” and “fresh solution of Allom” (both without galls) using “Oyl of Tartar per deliquum” and was able to prove “that an alluminous salt, from a Mineral acidity had dissolved a slight touch of the Minera of Iron, and both dissolv’d in the current spring of water makes up the Spaw“. ¹⁷³ Wittie denies that Simpson ever acknowledged on the beach the minera of iron to be in Scarbrough Spaw waters, so determined was he to deny all of Wittie’s principles save alum. Everything suggests that Wittie was telling the truth and that Simpson only after the beach demonstration came to accept the presence of a slight touch of the minera of iron in the Spaw water. Wittie does not deny that Simpson performed the test, and neither Wittie nor Simpson mentions any reaction to the tests. Furthermore, as we will see below, Simpson’s explanation of the test is so convoluted that it is hard to see how he could have convinced anyone on the beach that the waters partook of the minera of iron based on it. It would seem that, if Simpson did indeed perform separate tests with oyl of tartar they would have been used to reinforce the point already made with the gall-nut test, that the solution of the calx of alum reacted very similarly to Scarbrough Spaw waters. Only later would he reinterpret the oyl of tartar test to show that all along he had accepted the presence of minera of iron.

Disproving Wittie’s Other Principles

Wittie claims that Simpson, after “proving” the presence of alum, proceeded to disprove the presence of Wittie’s four other principles, while Simpson claims he accepted both alum and iron on the beath. As for iron, Wittie states that he fairly quickly dismissed Simpson’s denial by pointing out the iron stone on the cliff, something that Simpson apparently had not been aware of and thus he declined to press the point. ¹⁷⁴

However, regardless of how Simpson might have attempted to disprove the presence of iron, on the beach he did seem to adamantly deny the presence of both vitriol and nitre in the waters. Simpson questioned Wittie’s evidence for vitriol “that in the carriage of the water from the spring to remote places, there was found to be a loss of spirits, which he called Vitrioline spirits”. ¹⁷⁵

[F]irst, that these were Vitrioline spirits, and that they were lost, remained to be proved; that there was an alteration in the water by carrying to distant places I granted, but that I told him I apprehended was from a quassation of parts, which wooden vessels might easily admit of an incipient putrefaction, whence might really proceed an inversion of parts, which would beget a great alteration in the texture of the water, not to say what alteration may be made from oken vessels, which by precipitation may make a great alteration. ¹⁷⁶

Wittie claims to have defended the presence of vitrioline spirits on the beach by drawing on the authority of Fallopio.

Concerning his Quærie, How I would demonstrate those to be Vitrioline Spirits which were lost in the Waters carrying at distance ? I returned the same Answer which here I have already laid down, and need not to repeat; onely to that which I urged out of Fallopius…. ¹⁷⁷

One presumes that Wittie is referring to the earlier passage:

So Fallopius counts the Acidity to be a sufficient token of the imbibition of Vitriol (De Therm. Aq. cap. 7. p. 217) who treating of the Spaw in Germany, and that at Rome (concerning which I have met with several Gentlemen speaking, That they are not so Acid as this at Scarbrough.) He says, Arbitror eas esse acidas, quia habeant in se Chalcanthum purissimum, there I think them Acid, because they have pure Vitriol in them. ¹⁷⁸

Apparently there was some follow-up discussion about spirits. According to Simpson,

But an ingenious person being by, asked the Doctor, whether suppose the water was sealed up in a glass bottle hermetically, and so carryed to remote place, whether it would be altered by carrying or no? he answered, he thought it would; if so, then it was not from any volatility of parts, because the glass was supposed sealed up, therefore the alteration of the water, was not from the loss of any volatile spirits, and consequently not from the loss of the Vitrioline. ¹⁷⁹

Wittie agrees, “It is very true I said so [that he thought it would be altered by carrying if sealed hermetically], and now upon trial I am sure it is so; nor is his consequence of any validity, but rather the contrary; for if there be any loss, it must be of the volatile parts”, citing in Pyrologia Mimica as authority on this point Frambesarius, de Heer, and French. ¹⁸⁰

Simpson responded,

I arguing with him [Dr. Wittie] against Vitriol, as being inconsistent with that of Iron in the Spaw, told him that I apprehended, that if there were any common Vitriol in it, would be emetick or vomitive; that it had no such operation, constant experience convinc’d, as also an example he produc’d of a man that every morning drank Eighteen Quarts, for two weeks together without any vomiting at all. ¹⁸¹

But the reason he blusht not to urge, why, though Vitriol be in the water, yet it should not vomit, you will wonder at, it is this, viz. we frequently give in our Cordials, saith he, spirit of Vitriol as also to quench thirst, but doth not at all make the Patient vomit, saith the Doctor. ¹⁸²

By “common Vitriol”, Simpson was referring to “vitriol of Copper” which at several places he refers to as either equivalent or quite comparable to the artificial viride aeris or virideris (i.e., “green copper” = verdigris). ¹⁸³[put this also under green versus blue vitriol discussion]

Simpson does not say how he responded to this (if at all) on the beach but it is possible that he could have continued with the expanded critique he has in Hydrologia Chymica focusing on Wittie’s lack of understanding of the parts of vitriol. Wittie in turn could have responded as he does in different parts of Pyrologia Mimica along the lines that the spirit of vitriol is the predominant form of vitriol in Spaw waters and the vitriol in Spaw waters is immature and thus not emetic. ¹⁸⁴

[I]n what parts or respect soever, the vertue of Vitriol consists, it matters not much; its enough that we are sure, that though full ripe and mature Vitriol be a violent Emetick or Vomit, and in no wise to be given inwardly without due correction; yet this in our Spaw being unripe and not come to maturity, is not Emetick, but most safe and full of vertue. ¹⁸⁵

The Problem with Nitre

Simpson then proceeded to focus on nitre.

I queried with the Doctor how he came to understand that Nitre was an Ingredient, and that the chief in the Spaw water, being as he writes the most predominant; his arguments for it were twofold, the first argument he urged was this, which as he thought was grounded upon experiment: Take, saith he, the Spaw water, into which put some Gauls, which strikes a colour, then after it hath stood awhile, give the vessel a shake, and somewhat like a blackish sediment will fall to the bottom, then pour off the clear water, and set it upon the fire, and in a little time there will be a separation of a whitish curdling matter; take it off the fire, and let it stand to cool, and there will be found another whiter precipitation than before, and pour off the clear water again, and this precipitate, saith he, tasts somewhat like to Nitre ; the clear remaining water being boyled up to a dryness give the rest of the Minerals. ¹⁸⁶

His other argument, which indeed is the chief he insists upon, is twofold, viz. first from the Nitre, which is frequently found upon the Cliff, at the bottom whereof the Springs break out, this he thinks must needs (because so near the Well) contribute its assistance to the water, and that which confirms him in his judgement, as he imagines, is that when the Rain comes it washed off this Nitre, and after that sweats thorough the earth, as he supposeth, and fills the vacancy of the former. ¹⁸⁷

To which I replyed, that after the first precipitation was made, by the addition of Gauls, the clearly decanted water receiving an alteration from the fire, begun to make a spontaneous separation of part of the contents thereof, which I had no other cause, from any argument of his, to look upon otherwise than of the very same nature with the sediment which remained after the boyling up the rest of the water, as to the taste of it, which he thought was somewhat Nitrous, I suppose might be spoke in favour of what he would willingly it should have tasted. ¹⁸⁸

As to the nitre in the cliff, Simpson responds “that it is true there is Nitre found along the Cliff near the Well, but that this Nitre should contribute any influence to the water, I deny ; by shewing, first, that that Nitre is ingendred chiefly from the air, and next to that, that it is only superficially to be found”. ¹⁸⁹

Here Simpson seems to be drawing on a theory about the aerial origins of nitre that French had described. French claime that he could produce nitre artificially from any far earth, such as Fuller’s earth, bole, or marl.

Now note that in these kinds of fat earths there is at first observed no nitrous tast, neither can there from thence be extracted any nitre, but after they have continued a certain time in the cold air, do by a certain magnetick power of a nitrous principle, or saline unctuosity which is in them, attract an acidity, or rather acid spirit, which opens the bodies of those fat earths, and resolves the said saline unctuosity, and is therewith coagulated, (for the solution of the one, is the coagulation of the other) and after this manner is the nativity of nitre. ¹⁹⁰

Simpson rejects Wittie’s evidence for nitre as ingredient in water rather “the sediment of the Spaw water (being chiefly an Alluminous Salt)” attracts nitre from the air creating the little icicles ¹⁹¹

He further rejected Wittie’s evidence for nitre as an ingredient in water. Rather Simpson believed that “the sediment of the Spaw water (being chiefly an Alluminous Salt)” attracted nitre from the air creating the little icicles which Wittie erroneously believed were originally in the water. ¹⁹²

For his part, Wittie claims “He [Simpson] returns to our Conference at the Spaw, and particularly about the Nitre, which I had affirmed in my Book (P. 13.) to be of all the Minerals the most predominant“. But Wittie claims that Simpson dissembles here just as he does about the minera of iron.

Here he [Simpson] forges a confused Narrative, which was never in my Heart, nor on my Tongue to say (but perhaps it may be a lapse of his Memory.) — I made it out from that Analogy and Resemblance that is betwixt the Minerals that remain after the Evaporation of the Water, and the Nitre that breaks out of the Cliffe within 6 or 8 yards of the Spaw, which is white like a hoar-frost in hot and dry weather, but is washt off by every shower of Rain; both that and the Minerals extracted out of the Water shooting alike in Stirias, and also agreeing in Taste. ¹⁹³

Wittie claims that on the beach Simpson denied there was any nitre on the cliff.

But that thus was Nitre at that time, he confidently denied ; He said indeed it was nothing but an Aluminous Salt ; but when I urged that Alome does not shoot in Stirias, and upon that very account that it could be nothing but Nitre, then he would have it come from the Air of the Sea which has Nitre in it. I replied that then the whole Sea Coast should abound with it, which we see it doth not. Hence it follows that it can be nothing but Nitre, which proceeds out of the Earth, that is exceeding Nitrous. Neither yet is this Nitre discernable in every part of the Cliffe throughout, but runs in certain Veins, and much more plentifully near the Well. ¹⁹⁴

That this is Nitre several learned Physicians have been abundantly satisfied, and those both of London and elsewhere; the shooting of Nitre into Stirias being as peculiar to that Mineral, as the form of any Plant is to all of the same kind. This and the rest of the Minerals, which are apparent upon this Cliffe, have put many Naturalists into no small amazement; which made Dr. Tonstall of Newcastle, an Eminent Physician and Chymst say. He thought it was the most fertile Bank, in the world. ¹⁹⁵

Thus Wittie rested on the authority of Jorden that nitre was the only concrete juice that shot crystals in the form of icicles.

Let him further know, that all the Earth about Scarbrough is full of Nitre, from whence it it that the Meadow about the Town are more eminently fertile, than any other that I have observed upon the Sea-Coast; which gave too much encouragement to an Ingeniuous Gentleman a Friend of mine, to begin a Project there of Making Nitre which for his own sake I wish had succeeded according to his expectation; but the truth is, it proved but an imperfect Nitre, especially that which is extracted out of the Water, and so in refractis viribus., and also joyned with the other Salts, which perhaps do enfeeble it more. ¹⁹⁶

And yet I have observed many years ago this Sediment of the Water, having been laid aside in a cool place some dayes, to shoot into Stiria’s half an Inch long, especially after Calcination, Filtration, and Separation from the grosser parts of the Minerals. ¹⁹⁷

This I have expresly touched on in my Book, and did also sufficiently urge it in our Conference at the Spaw, which yet prevailed nothing with this Gentleman, though it was abundantly satisfactory to all else that were by; and yet it seems ev’n now while he writ this, he was of the same mind; That these Volatile Nitrous Particles, as he calls them, which float in the Aire, are magnetically attracted by the aluminous Salt that is in the Body of the Minerals , extracted from the Water ; as also by the Mineral Earth of Alome which is upon the Cliffe : and consequently that which is in the Water is nothing but an aluminous Salt. ¹⁹⁸

Print Wars

The war of words on the beach soon carried over into a war of words in print, which if anything was even more vitriolic. “English medicine after the Restoration saw a wide variety of long-running disagreements, often centring on the College of Physicians, which was repeatedly attacked by chemists, apothecaries and physicians with degrees from universities other than Oxford and Cambridge”. But most of the published disputes in medical circles were typically “dressed in public-spiritedness and intellectual justifications” at least superficially disguising the “the personal battles that lay behind them [which] could be extremely vitriolic”. ¹⁹⁹

Simpson began with the publication of Hydrologia Chymica in early 1669. In Hydrologia Chymica, Simpson reiterated many of the arguments made on the beach. Beyond that, Simpson attacked practically everything Wittie had claimed in the 2nd edition of The Scarborough Spaw, point by point. In addition to the criticisms leveled on the beach against Wittie’s five principles, Simpson further critiqued other evidence that Wittie had written in support of these principles. Simpson also heavily criticized Wittie’s basic understanding of mineral waters, like Wittie’s assertion that minerals can transmute into water ²⁰⁰ or that any metal in its perfected state including iron can give its taste to plain water. ²⁰¹

Wittie responded quite quickly with Pyrologia Mimica criticizing everything Simpson said, point by point.

During the last part of 1669 and first part of 1670, Simpson was off in Leyden getting a medical degree and thus was not there to respond immediatel. He eventually followed up with Hydrological Essayes in 1670.

Before summarizing the points in these three books, we should observe something about the polemical nature of these writings. There will be numerous debates about mineral springs in 17th- and 18th-century England, but the Scarborough Spaw wars take the cake. As Thomas Short put it in 1734,

The Wranglings and Contentions of those who have wrote on our Medicinal Waters, would tempt one to think that they had not the Discovery of Truth so much at Heart, as the Gratification of a private Humour, or the Support of some favourite Hypothesis, &c. Hence several of them have fantastically impregnated several Waters with Principles of their own Brain, and not those of nature’s Bounty; so peevish were they that placing a Word, nay, a syllable different from one another, would occasion a Quarrel, that if one say they contain a nitro-aluminous Salt, another will blot many Sheets of Paper to have it an alumino-nitrous Water, and yet both be mistaken. Never did this litigious Temper arrive at a greater and more scandalous Height among Gentlemen, than in the famous Controversy about Scarborough Spaw. ²⁰²

The pattern was highly similar to the Van Helmont-de Heer controversy. The tone of Simpson’s first salvo was actually rather calm, just as Van Helmont had been in his first publication. Simpson seemed content to use fairly mild rhetoric to argue against everything that Wittie had written, even to the point of criticizing the preliminary verses and dedications. ²⁰³ But faced with such a presumptuous challenge, Wittie like de Heer went ballistic and immediately counterattacked every thing that Simpson had written, with a plethora of ad hominems about Simpson’s intelligence and character thrown in for good measure. The salvos continued to fly with another round of books as others joined the ranks of the opposing armies while some would-be mediators stepped in to try to calm the waters.

Simpson criticized “the Doctors tools, by which he undertakes to hew out the rudiments of this Spaw, they are indeed very rude, and of a low rank, viz. a skellet, a culinary fire, but not a word of a glass Still” to which Wittie responded that Simpson used “the very same Tools”. ²⁰⁴

Wittie ridiculed over and over Simpson’s questionable quicky medical degree from the University of Leyden. ²⁰⁵

“Had these things been known in that neighbour University beyond Sea, where, after a Fourthnights so journing, and a private Examination like that of Schoolboyes when they are admitted Freshmen into our Colledges, he was dubd with a degree Sub Camino, to wit, under the Chimney, as I heard himself confess to a Learned Scotch-man, Mr. Richard Douglas, who was well acquainted with the Customes of that Universitie : So called Sub Camino, on purpose to distinguish it from that degree of Honour which is taken publikely in the Schools, and which the Scholes of that nation scorn to take, but is conferred only on Gentlemen or Noblemens Servants who have a mind to see the Ceremonies; and signifies no more, than if one of our Professours should jocularly make a Doctor in his Chamber, to gratifie some Friends in shewing them the Ceremonies of that degree, and ought not to set as a Title in a Book. I say had these things been known, we had not heard of this Leaden Title, the publication whereof gave occasion to the setting out of this impertinent Piece; nor is it to be accounted any increase of his Reputation to have added this to his Batchelors of Arts degree. I mention this on purpose to give a caution to the Heads of our Universities, that when they admit Gentlemen ad eundem gradum, they may distinguish betwixt that degree taken in the Schools, and that sub Camino, since they have not any degree of that metal” ²⁰⁶

“Wittie, Johnston and Lister possessed effective weapons which allowed them to remain aloof from the fray, they employed third parties to prosecute chemists and clerics who practised medicine and they refused to consult with even an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians because he had not attended Oxford or Cambridge” ²⁰⁷

Simpson’s challenge

“But I may not pretermit his vain-glorious challenge he sends me, to take an equal number of Patients with me of them that come to the Spaw, and which of us should make the best and speediest Cure should wear the Bayes.— Ay, this is that he would fain be at, to try Experiments on mens Bodies, which he proposed before in his Hydrol. Chym. and for which I did a little school him, p. 262. of my Answer. But assuredly his tools he works withal are so well known, even by his own description of them in that Book, that no wise man is willing to try their temper…” ²⁰⁸

Wittie says he once treated a mad man with the Spaw water and that would be the only kind of patient that would turn to Simpson ²⁰⁹

Dueling Metaphors

Both Wittie and Simpson used dueling metaphors in describing the arguments. ²¹⁰

However, despite the popularity of dueling in 17th- and 18th-century England for settling personal disputes among certain segments of the society, physicians rarely engaged in duels with each other. “Duelling was not seen as compatible with the Christian morals and healing art of gentlemanly physicians who were seen by themselves as men of sensibility and by others as effete cowards.” ²¹¹

 

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Most Uncivil Language

Regardless of the scholarly content of much of what Wittie and Simpson had written, to a casual reader their writings came across as so much name-calling much like the de Heer-Van Helmont debate. If Simpson (like Van Helmont) had actually been rather civil in his first publication, once the critique was published all the gloves were off. Whatever Simpson may have intended with Hydrologia Chymica, Wittie (like de Heer) interpreted this first publication as the opening salvo of war whose some purpose was to defame him and the Scarbrough Spaw. Indeed the very title that Wittie chose for his rejoinder, Pyrologia Mimica, was designed to ridicule Simpson’s views as both “altogether novel” and, at the same time, a “hotch-potch of other men’s writings”, experiments ripped off from others which Simpson tried to claim for his own while butchering them in the process. ²¹² And just as Simpson attacked every detail in Wittie’s book, Wittie attacked every detail in Simpson’s book. But Wittie did it with far more mudslinging that Simpson had, constantly attacking Simpson’s rudeness, immodesty, disingenuity, lack of moderation, bombast, vulgarity, vain-glory, and “Dunghil Language” “exceedingly ill becoming any man, especially one so young, who like a Cockerell but newly hatched out of his Shell, begins to crow fiercely”, sarcastically referring to Simpson as “this bare Batchelour of Arts”, “the young man”, among a host of other put-downs. ²¹³ As for Simpson’s medical abilities, Wittie observes that Simpson once treated a mad man with the Spaw water and that would be the only kind of patient that would turn to Simpson. ²¹⁴

At the same time, Wittie like de Heer portrayed himself as the victim.

By this time I suppose the Candid and Judicious Reader discerns the folly of the young man, whose wrath and envy against me, have excited him to abuse the World with an ill premeditated piece of work. Insipientis est dicere non putatam. But what satisfaction have I now for the injuries he has offered me, in his causless endeavour to blast my Reputation; I most willingly submit all to the Ingenuity of the Judicious and Impartial Reader, being ready to receive him when he shall make his Acknowledgment. ²¹⁵

In response, Simpson’s written rebuttal in Hydrological Essayes was far more strident than it had been in Hydrologia Chymica — as Simpson himself admitted many years later. ²¹⁶

Simpson attacked the competency of Wittie’s translations.

At the first glance upon my Antagonist’s Book, I thought he had some colour of Authority on his side, but upon second (and therefore more mature) thoughts, unravelling his Clew, I found his quotations of Authors in general, either impertinent, nothing to the purpose in the main, or theis sence perverted and wrested, or their words falsly translated out of the Latin. ²¹⁷

At one point Simpson even accused Wittie of having spiked the water with vitriol!

But I injure my assertions, demonstrated by Reason and Experiments, (if I overween not) truly sufficient. Therefore, Reader, take no notice of immoralities, which, I am sure, were once no Ingredients amongst the rest of the Spaw, and their existency therein did appear as little as that of Vitriol; yet (oh the riddle!) I find by experience, after all, that they are therein, for my Antagonist first discovered there there, and of this I yeeld him the glory and tryumph, but whisper to him, it was his own infused addition, and shall (for the Drinker’s sake) desire him to throw no more such stuff and filth into those Waters, which God and Nature have intended for other purposes. ²¹⁸

Like Wittie, Simpson also lost no opportunity to portray himself as the injured innocent.

It is my hap once more to appear in publick, being necessitated thereto, in vindication of the truth I have asserted, touching the Scarbrough-Spaw, &c. Were I not constrained, and did not the expectation of many oblige me thereto; I could, I confess, as willingly have laid my Pen aside, as have taken it up. ²¹⁹

The Reader “will find all along, that where he falls short in strength of Argument, he makes supplies in an over measure of Calumnies, Taunts, Scoffs and groundless Accusations”. ²²⁰

“Unto all which ungentile and unscholar-like usages…That hereby he hath given me so much the advantage over him…his Morals and his Naturals are much of a scantling; and it seems probable, that he that taught him Physicks, read Ethicks to him also”. ²²¹

“He hath rendred himself an object of reproof (not to say contempt) and forgiveness; which last I will only taken the advantage of, and here publickly give it to him; and tough it was his business to throw dirt, mine shall be only to wipe it off, and calmly to tell thee (Reader) who threw it, and why”. ²²²

As to “his Repartees; suffice it therefore, that I think them not worthy a Reply”..”to trifle it away with such impertinancies”. ²²³

“His Epistle goes off at the wrong end; it was aim’d at me that stood before it, but like a foul Gun it strikes the Discharger”. ²²⁴

As for defaming Scarbrough Spaw waters, Simpson claimed throughout the entire Scarborough debate that aluminous waters were just as “noble” as vitrioline waters. ²²⁵ The overall conclusion drawn from Simpson is the great similarity between vitrioline and aluminous waters in most respects. Indeed, if anything, Simpson seems to “defame” the vitrioline Knaresbrough Sweet Spaw because of its small quantity of the essurine acid salt.

So that in effect, all Mineral Springs, whether vitrioline or aluminous, are the same; only some waters are more strongly saturated with Mineral Salts than others: in order to which, we find that the Scarborough and Malton water are better fraught, and more richly laden with its Minerals than this of Knarsborough, which is a more poor lean water, thin of Minerals, and therefore greater quantities must be drunke. ²²⁶

A Matter of Honor

In late 17th-century England, such defamatory language frequently led to a challenge and a duel. Physicians certainly were not immune to the code of honor that led men to meet at dawn with pistols or swords drawn. “[M]edical practitioners depended for success upon their reputation and this was extremely vulnerable to attack by colleagues”. ²²⁷ However, duels between physicians were extremely rare in Restoration England. ²²⁸

Both Wittie and Simpson frequently employ dueling imagery in their writing as if they were engaged in a duel with their rival. But these references were mere literary flourishes with no suggestion that there would ever actually be a duel. The war between Wittie and Simpson remained solely a war of words, words spoken and words in print. ²²⁹

“Duelling was not seen as compatible with the Christian morals and healing art of gentlemanly physicians who were seen by themselves as men of sensibility and by others as effete cowards”. ²³⁰ In these disputes, each side claimed innocence, claimed to be the injured party only interested in the common good and sound science, while accusing the other of pursuing self-interest and scientific fraud nd stooping to ungentlemanly name-calling. ²³¹ “Especially after the Restoration, learned physicians affected to abhor quarrels, even when this posture conflicted with their behaviour, and carefully defended any entry into controversy. Injured innocence was the only respectable style to adopt, although some writers had difficulty maintaining it”. ²³²

Each side in these medical debates sought instead to appeal to the court of pubic opinion through persuasive argument. ²³³

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