James Hardy and the Devonshire Colic.

JAMES HARDY figures little in most reports of the Devonshire Colic. Instead, authors have concentrated mainly on the role of Sir George Baker in the discovery of the cause of the disease. 6, 18, 19, 28. 29 The work of Baker is undoubtedly of the first importance when considering the history of the Devonshire Colic and his essays published in 1767 and 1768, 3, 4 discussing the results of his experiments on the Devonshire cider are rightly described as masterpieces of inductive logic.8 Baker showed irrefutably that the disease was a form of lead poisoning and he postulated that the poisoning resulted from the drinking of cider contaminated by lead in the cider pounds and presses. The incorporation of lead into the cider-making apparatus was, according to Baker, almost solely confined to the county of Devon and explained why the disease only seldom occurred in the other cider counties of Hereford, Worcester, Somerset and Gloucester. Baker's 'leaden hypothesis' aroused considerable resentment in Devon. The cider makers were then recovering from the ill-effects of the Cider Tax which had been repealed in 1766, the year before Baker's first essay was published, and they were anxious in case his report resulted in another decline in trade. A number of tracts were prepared purporting to disprove Baker's theory and show that the Devonshire cider was uncontaminated. 1, 2, 9, 11, 12 As was customary in the eighteenth century, the debate was conducted in a forthright-often libelous-manner. According to one contemporary source, it was 'combated with a Degree of warmth, almost unaccountable to those, who deeming themselves uninterested in the Dispute, do not consider that the Opponents believed the Honour of their County depended on the Confutation of Sir George Baker's arguments.'2 There is no doubt that the opponents of Baker's theory felt compelled to act in the main for financial rather than scientific reasons. They were often remarkably candid on this point. Thomas Alcock, one of Baker's principal adversaries wrote: