cost of building it, shows that Mr. Taylor was probably justified in stating that this very bridge had been built "in a very rough manner." There may have been some difference in the value of money at the two dates; but this was probably inconsiderable in a period of no more than twenty years.

(D.) It will be observed that in the first syllable of the name Teng-brydge or Tenge-brydge the g always succeeds the n, and does not precede it, as in the present day. I have observed that many dwellers on the banks of the river pronounce this syllable as if it were written in the form used in the Stoke Gabriel "Lijer." Nor must it be regarded as a mere provincialism, since Drayton, in the First Book of his Poly-olbion (1612), wrote the name of the river Ting.

IV. WOOLLACOMBE SANDS, Dean Stanley on.

The following passage occurs in the late Dean Stanley's Historical Memorials of Canterbury (10th ed. 1883) :-"There is an old farm-house, close to the sea-shore, still called Woollacombe Tracy, which is said to mark the spot where he " [William de Tracy, one of the murderers of Thomas a Becket] "lived in banishment. Beneath it, enclosed within black jagged headlands, extends Morte Bay. Across the bay stretch the Woollacombe Sands, remarkable as being the only sands. along the north coast, and as presenting a pure and driven expanse for some miles." (p. 110.)

The Woollacombe Sands occupy a length of three miles along the shore of Morte Bay, between Morte and Baggy Points; but, instead of "being the only sands along the north coast," even of Devon, Sands of greater length and breadth exist in the next, that is Barnstaple or Bideford, Bay. If, however, as seems probable, the author's unqualified words "the north coast"-are intended to include Cornwall, equally great, and even greater, stretches of Sand occur at various parts of the coast between Pentire Point and St. Ives; and notably at the entrance of Padstow Harbour, as well as in Constantine, Watergate, Fistral, and St. Ives Bays.

NOTES ON THE DEVONSHIRE COLIC AND ITS

CONNECTION WITH CIDER.

BY FREDERICK WILLCOCKS, M.D.

(Read at Seaton, July, 1885.)

AT the meeting of this Association at Exmouth, in 1883, our lamented friend, the Rev. Treasurer Hawker, read a most interesting and eloquent essay on "Devonshire Cider." He then dealt with the subject mainly in its social and economical aspects, and enriched his paper with many quotations from the poets who had in former days sung the praises of the apple. In the discussion which followed on that occasion, some of the speakers referred to the effects of cider drinking on health, and I then made a few remarks on the subject of the so-called "cider colic" of Devon, or Colica Damnoniensis, which in the present communication I have ventured to bring somewhat more fully before the notice of the Association.

This subject is the more interesting, as it is intimately associated with the names of three distinguished medical writers of the eighteenth century, of whom two were natives of the county, and the third practised at Exeter for upwards of thirty years. I have been able to find but scanty reference to any of them in previous volumes of our Transactions, and have accordingly incorporated a few details of their lives and work in my present paper.

The Colica Damnoniensis, or Devonshire colic, was a complaint which, in the early part of the eighteenth century, was supposed to be peculiar to Devonshire. It broke out frequently in the autumn, and in some years spread far and wide over the whole county. It was observed to be most prevalent in seasons when apples were plentiful, and hence it came to be popularly ascribed to the influence of cider drinking. These outbreaks attracted considerable attention

in the medical literature of the time, and their origin and nature were much discussed.

The three eminent Devonians of the last century who stand out prominently in connection with this subject areDr. Musgrave, of Exeter, Dr. Huxham, of Plymouth, and Sir George Baker, M.D., who was afterwards President of the Royal College of Physicians. All three were Fellows of the Royal Society and West-countrymen, the two latter being natives of Devon. The first two practised in the countyMusgrave at Exeter, and Huxham at Plymouth. Baker practised in London, and was afterwards created a baronet. Musgrave was one of the first to draw attention to the complaint in the early part of the eighteenth century, and Huxham, somewhat later, very accurately described its symptoms, and advanced a theory as to its probable cause. It was not, however, until some years later that Sir George Baker cleared up its nature, and finally removed the stigma which had for upwards of half a century given Devonshire and its cider an unenviable notoriety. In his essay on the Endemial Colic of Devonshire, read before the Royal College of Physicians in 1767, Baker showed clearly that the Colica Damnoniensis was really lead poisoning, and did not depend at all on any deleterious properties in the cider itself. The lead accidentally gained access to the cider during the process of manufacture, in consequence of the general use throughout the county of this metal in the construction of the vats and presses. This source of contamination had been previously unsuspected, and Baker's observations at first met with considerable ridicule;* but, as a result of his labours, the Devonshire colic entirely disappeared.

Devonshire does not appear to have been celebrated for its orchards during the middle ages, and, indeed, the popular reputation of the county for its apples and cider is probably far more recent than is usually imagined. According to Lysons, the Devonshire Domesday contains no reference to orchards, and no incidental mention is made of them in the records of the two or three succeeding centuries. During the fifteenth century-in the period of the Wars of the Roses -the cultivation of fruit and herbs of all kinds was greatly neglected throughout England. Harrison, in his Description of England, prefixed to the edition of Holinshed's Chronicle, published in the latter years of Elizabeth's reign, refers * POLWHELE, History of Devon (1797), vol. i. p. 328. +Magna Britannia (Devon), vol. vi. p. 277.

to this neglected branch of agriculture in the following words:

"Such herbes fruits and roots also as grow yeerelie out of the ground of seed have beene verie plentifull in this land, in the time of the first Edward, and after his daies, but in processe of time they grew also to be neglected so that from Henrie the fourth till the latter end of Henrie the seventh and beginning of Henrie the eight there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained either unknowne or supposed as food more meet for hogs and sauage beasts to feed upon than mankind."*

In the next century, however, and especially in the later Tudor reigns, fruit again began to be extensively cultivated, and Harrison speaks in high praise of the orchards of his day, which, he says, "were never furnished with so good fruit nor with such varietie, as at this present." A large number of new kinds of fruit were also introduced in the forty years previous to his time. He mentions the cider made in other parts of England where apples were abundant, as in Sussex, Kent, and Worcester, but does not specially refer to that of Devonshire. Harrison further intimates that cider at that time was not a common beverage in any part of England, but was looked on as a delicate sort of drinke," and he compares it to the metheglin of the Welsh, and the ambrosia of the Greeks. It would appear from this that the increased attention paid to the cultivation of the apple for the production of cider probably did not extend to Devonshire until the latter end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. This point is further borne out by the remarks of Westcote, who, in his View of Devonshire in 1630, refers to the great enlargement of Devonshire orchards "of late years," more especially for the making of cider. Westcote calls it "a drink both pleasant and healthy, much desired of seamen for long southern voyages as more fit to make beverage than beer, and much cheaper and easier to be had than wine."

The popularity of cider among sailors, alluded to in this passage, may be accounted for by the number of Devonshire natives who served in the various naval expeditions fitted out at Plymouth in the reign of Elizabeth. In the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series), under date 1597, there occurs a letter from William Stallenge, of Plymouth, to Secretary

*HOLINSHED'S Chronicle (Hooker's Edition), 1585, p. 210. HOLINSHED's Chronicle, Description of England, p. 170.

p. 56.

A View of Devonshire in MDCXXX., Westcote. Oliver's Edition, 1845,

Cecil. In this, reference is made to the various provisions which were required for the fleet, at that time lying off Scilly, and a difficulty in obtaining cider is incidentally mentioned.

Another explanation of the considerable request in which cider was held among our sailors not improbably depended on its antiscorbutic properties. Dr. Huxham, who had a large experience of scurvy at Plymouth in the early part of the eighteenth century, speaks very highly of the use of apples and of cider in that complaint, and states that he had seen many severe cases entirely recover by the use of apples and cider alone. He also adds that several captains of ships carried cider with them even to the East Indies.

Huxham further attributes the great improvement in the health of the coast line of both Devon and Cornwall in this respect to the more extensive use of cider as a beverage. In spite of these authoritative statements of Huxham, however, the use of cider on board ship was not appreciated in the British fleet during the great wars of the eighteenth century; for the general distribution of lemon juice in the navy did not take place, as the result of the writings of the elder Lind, until 1796. Polwhele ‡ claimed for a Devonshire clergyman, the Rev. Herman Drewe, the credit of having anticipated, by many years, the discovery of vaccination by Jenner. In the present instance, the common practice of Devonshire sailors of taking cider with them on long voyages may not unfairly be held to have anticipated, by nearly two centuries, the general use of antiscorbutics in our Royal Navy.

From the foregoing evidence of Westcote's View of Devonshire, it would appear that a very considerable increase in the number of orchards, and in the manufacture of cider in Devon,

"Vix utique datur ad alcalinam acrimoniam praestantius remedium : nihil magis, aut efficax, aut jucundum, nautis scorbuticis; nam foedis eorum ulceribus brevi medetur, ac putredinem gingivarum foetidissimam delet prorsus: plurimos certe vidi, a navigatione longa teterrimis obsitos ulcusculis, et lue scorbutica tantum non confectos, solo usu pomorum, mox restitutos. Ac nullus dubito, quin generosum pomaceum foret saluberrimus potus ab Indias navigantibus: imo plures jam satis experti sunt salutares hujus effectus. Hoc habeo etiam addendum, quod, ex quo, apud omnes fere nostrates, tanto fuit in usu, evanuit pene et tetra scabies et horrida lepra quae oras has maritimas olim infestaverunt maxime, Cornubiam potissimum." -Opusculum de morbo colico Damnoniorum, 1738, Huxham, p. 24.

"Nullus utique dubito quin largus aceti et pomacei usus foret nautis utilissimus in longis navigationibus: imo hoc jam satis expertum est, adeo ut secum plurimi ad Indiam usque orientalem vinum pomaceum deportent." Observationes de acre et morbis epidemicis, Huxham, 1740, vol. ii. p. 57.

See also Monitum de sanitate nautarum tuenda. De Febribus, Huxham (Appendix).

+ Select Dissertations, &c., p. 22, Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart., F.R.S. History of Devon, vol. i. p. 328.