Should the following extract not be considered as bearing on the question,
we must admit that it is a remarkable bit of folk lore.
The quotation is second-hand, being taken from the Chronicles of London
Bridge, _Family Library_, p. 436.; the authority is, however, there given.
The passage refers to some parties engaged to refine the coinage, and who
were taken ill, affected probably by the fumes of arsenic.
"---- the mooste of them in meltinge fell sycke to deathe, w^{th} the
sauoure, so as they were advised to drynke in a dead man's skull for
theyre recure. {113}
"Whereupon he w^{th} others who had thovergyght of that worke, procured
a warrant from the Counsaile to take of the heades vppon London Bridge
and make cuppes thereof, whereof they dranke and founde some reliefe,
althoughe the moost of them dyed."
This is supposed to have been about 1560 or 1561.