Charms were used to avert evil and counteract supposed malignant influences of all kinds, but it is in their connection with diseases of the body that we are chiefly interested. There is scarcely a disease for which a charm has not been given, but it will be seen that those which are most affected by charms are principally derangements of the nervous system, or those periodical in character—diseases, in fact, which have proved to be most easily influenced by suggestion.

Charms might be of the most varied composition. The material was selected from the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom, and might consist of anything to which any magical property was considered to belong. Rags, old clothes, pins, and needles were frequently employed in this way. Sir Walter Scott had in his possession a pretended charm taken from an old woman who was said to charm and injure her neighbor's cattle. It consisted of feathers, parings of nails, hair, and similar material, wrapped in a lump of clay.

The theory of similia similibus curantur seems to have entered into mediaeval medicine, and especially into the manufacture of charms. The following prescriptions are examples: "The skin of a Raven's heel is good against gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a Lion or Cock, and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very terrible unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him tongues, and seek out those of water frogs and ducks and such creatures notorious for their continuall noise making."[125]

King also tells us that "Hartes fete, Does Fete, Bulles fete, or any ruder beastes fete should ofte be eaten; the same confort the sinewes. The elder these beastes be, the more they strengthen." It is noticeable that not age but youth is now honored, and to-day only calves' feet are accorded medicinal value.

Fort[126] gives the following account of the origin of cabbalism: "Towards the close of the fourth century an unknown scholiast collected the exegetical elucidations, explanations and interpretations produced by the Gemara, and united them to the Mishna, as a commentary out of which arose the Talmud. The word 'cabbala,' whose original significance was used in the sense of reception, or transmission, obtained at a later period the meaning of secret lore, because the metaphysical and theosophic idealities which had been developed in the Rabbinical schools, were communicated only to a few, and consequently remained the undisputed property of a limited and close organization." From this there developed a varied and complicated system of words and numbers which showed their power in all forms of magical marvels. Not the least common or puissant of these was the healing of the sick.

Knots were sometimes used as charms, and Cockayne gives us an example in the preface of Saxon Leechdoms: "As soon as a man gets pain in his eyes, tie in unwrought flax as many knots as there are letters in his name, pronouncing them as you go, and tie it round his neck."

Long before and long after New Testament days when Jesus used spittle on the blind, and the time when Vespasian healed the blind by the same means, spittle was considered a most efficacious remedy for various diseases. Levinus Lemnius tells us: "Divers experiments shew what power and quality there is in Man's fasting Spittle, when he hath neither eat nor drunk before the use of it: for it cures all tetters, itch, scabs, pushes, and creeping sores: and if venomous little beasts have fastened on any part of the body, as hornets, beetles, toads, spiders, and such like, that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and inflammations, do but rub the place with fasting Spittle, and all those effects will be gone and dispersed. Since the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours, (for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of Nature, as Fire draws distilled Water from hearbs) the reason may be easily understood why Spittle should do such strange things, and destroy some creatures."[127]

In Saxon Leechdoms a cure for gout runs thus: "Before getting out of bed in the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinuews, and say, 'Flee, gout, flee,' etc." Sir Thomas Browne, however, is not quite sure that fasting spittle really is poisonous to snakes and vipers.

Alexander of Tralles tells us that even Galen did homage to incantations, and quotes him as saying: "Some think that incantations are like old wives' tales; as I did for a long while. But at last I was convinced that there is virtue in them by plain proofs before my eyes. For I had trial of their beneficial operations in the case of those scorpion-stung, nor less in the case of bones stuck fast in the throat, immediately, by an incantation thrown up. And many of them are excellent, severally, and they reach their mark."

Even before our day, however, there were some sceptics. Andrews, quoting Reginald Scot, says: "The Stories which our facetious author relates of ridiculous Charms which, by the help of credulity, operated Wonders, are extremely laughable. In one of them a poor Woman is commemorated who cured all diseases by muttering a certain form of Words over the party afflicted; for which service she always received one penny and a loaf of bread. At length, terrified by menaces of flames both in this world and the next, she owned that her whole conjuration consisted in these potent lines, which she always repeated in a low voice near the head of her patient:

'Thy loaf in my hand, And thy penny in my purse, Thou art never the better— And I am never the worse.'"

Lord Northampton quite fittingly inquires: "What godly reason can any Man alyve alledge why Mother Joane of Stowe, speaking these wordes, and neyther more nor lesse,

'Our Lord was the fyrst Man, That ever Thorne prick'd upon: It never blysted nor it never belted, And I pray God, nor this not may,'

should cure either Beasts, or Men and Women from Diseases?"[128]

Perhaps it would be well for us to treat the subject of charms as we have that of amulets, and present the different charms under the heading of the diseases which they were supposed to cure.

Ague.—Many charms were given for this disease, some of which seem to us to-day most ridiculous. Brand gives a quotation from the Life of Nicholas Mooney who was a notorious highwayman, executed with others at Bristol, in 1752. It is as follows: "After the cart drew away, the hangman very deservedly had his head broke for attempting to pull off Mooney's shoes; and a fellow had like to have been killed in mounting the gallows to take away the ropes that were left after the malefactors were cut down. A young woman came fifteen miles for the sake of the rope from Mooney's neck, which was given to her, it being by many apprehended that the halter of an executed person will charm away the ague and perform many other cures."

Pettigrew relates that "In Skippon's account of a 'Journey through the Low Countries,' he makes mention of the lectures of Ferrarius and his narrative of the cure of the ague of a Spanish lieutenant, by writing the words FEBRA FUGE, and cutting off a letter from the paper every day, and he observed the distemper to abate accordingly; when he cut the letter F last of all the ague left him. In the same year, he says, fifty more were reported to be cured in the same manner."

Another charm for ague was only effective when said up the chimney on St. Agnes Eve, by the eldest female of the family. It was as follows:

"Tremble and go! First day shiver and burn. Tremble and quake! Second day shiver and learn: Tremble and die! Third day never return."[129]

Pliny said: "Any plant gathered from the bank of a brook or river before sunrise, provided that no one sees the person who gathers it, is considered as a remedy for tertian ague." Lodge, in glancing at the superstitious creed with respect to charms, says: "Bring him but a Table of Lead, with Crosses (and 'Adonai,' or 'Elohim,' written in it), and he thinks it will heal his ague."

Mr. Marsden, while among the Sumatrans, accidentally met with the following charm for the ague: "(Sign of the cross.) When Christ saw the cross he trembled and shaked and they said unto him, hast thou ague? and he said unto them, I have neither ague nor fever; and whosoever bears these words, either in writing or in mind, shall never be troubled with ague or fever. So help thy servants, O Lord, who put their trust in thee!"

From Douce's notes, Mr. Brand informs us that it was usual with many persons about Exeter who had ague "to visit at dead of night the nearest cross road five different times, and there bury a new-laid egg. The visit is paid about an hour before the cold fit is expected; and they are persuaded that with the Egg they shall bury the Ague. If the experiment fail, (and the agitation it occasions may often render it successful) they attribute it to some unlucky accident that may have befallen them on the way. In the execution of this matter they observe the strictest silence, taking care not to speak to anyone, whom they may happen to meet. I shall here note another Remedy against the Ague mentioned as above, viz., by breaking a salted Cake of Bran and giving it to a Dog, when the fit comes on, by which means they suppose the malady to be transferred from them to the Animal."[130] This and similar methods were designated transplantation.

Bites of Venomous Animals.—It is an old medical superstition that every animal whose bite is poisonous carries the cure within itself, but external charms were also used. It was thought that the poison of the Spanish fly existed in the body, while the head and wings contained the antidote. "A hair of the dog that bites you" is the cure for hydrophobia, the fat of the viper was the remedy for its bite, and "three scruples of the ashes of the witch, when she had been well and carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure catholicon against all the evil effects of witchcraft."[131]

Serpents' bites, which were always considered very dangerous, were said to be healed by people called sauveurs, who had a mark of St. Catharine's wheel upon their palates. Snake stones, originally brought from Java, were supposed to absorb the poison by being simply placed over the bite. Russel mentions a charm against mosquitoes, used in Aleppo. It consisted of certain unintelligible characters inscribed on a little slip of paper, which was pasted over the windows or upon the lintel of the door. One family has obtained, through heredity, the power of making these charms, and they distribute them on a certain day of the year without remuneration.

Navarette was told that the best remedy against scorpions was to make a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times round the town on the Sabbath, calling upon and imploring the assistance of the saint. On the third night—the prayers being heard and granted, and the health restored—the madness was removed. The prayer was as follows:

"Thou who presidest over the Apulian shores, Thou who curest the bites of mad dogs, Thou, O Sacred One, ward off this cruel plague, This dismal gnawing of dogs. Get thee far hence, O madness, O fury."[132]

Burns.—The following is "A Charme for a burning":

"There came three angels out of the east; The one brought fire, the two brought frost— Out fire; in frost; In the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost. —Amen."[133]

Childbirth.—Many superstitious practices have grown up around this condition. In 1554, Bonner, Bishop of London, forbade "a mydwife of his diocese to exercise any witchecrafte, charmes, sorcerye, invocations, or praiers, other than such as be allowable and may stand with the lawes and ordinances of the Catholike Church." In 1559, the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an inquiry was instituted "whether you knowe any that doe use charmes, sorcery, enchauntementes, invocations, circles, witchecraftes, southsayinge, or any lyke craftes or imaginacions invented by the devyl, and specially in the tyme of woman's travaylle." Two years before this, the midwives took an oath among themselves, so Strype tells us, not to "suffer any other bodies' child to be set, brought, or laid before any woman delivered of child in the place of her natural child, so far forth as I can know and understand. Also I will not use any kind of sorcerye or incantation in the time of the travail of any woman."

The eagle stone and iris were supposed to promote an easy delivery, and the sardonyx was laid inter mammas to procure an easy birth; a sardonyx formerly belonged to the monastery of St. Albans to be used for this purpose. In some countries, during childbirth, the men lie in, keep their beds, and are attended as if really sick, sometimes as long as six weeks.[134]

Chorea.—Of all the charms against this disease, St. Vitus' dance, none seemed so effectual as an application to the saint. In the translation of Naogeorgus, Barnabe Googe says:

"The nexte is VITUS sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire Both men and women bringing hennes for offring doe repaire: The cause whereof I doe not know, I think, for some disease Which he is thought to drive away from such as him doe please."

Colic.—This disorder was cured by a person drinking the water in which he had washed his feet; we might well consider the cure worse than the disease.

Consumption.—Shaw[135] speaks of a cure for consumptive diseases used in his time in Moray. "They pared the Nails of the Fingers and Toes of the Patient, put these Parings into a Rag cut from his clothes, then waved their Hand with the Rag thrice round his head crying Deas soil, after which they buried the Rag in some unknown place." Dr. Baas[136] declares that natural pills of rabbit's dung were in use on the Rhine as a cure for consumption.

"There is a disease," says the minister of Logierait, writing in 1795, "called Glacach by the Highlanders, which, as it affects the chest and lungs, is evidently of a consumptive nature. It is called Macdonald's disease, 'because there are particular tribes of Macdonalds, who were believed to cure it with the Charms of their touch, and the use of a certain set of words. There must be no fee given of any kind. Their faith in the touch of a Macdonald is very great.'"[137]

Cramp.—Among the many charms for cramp, the following is taken from Pepys' Diary:[138]

"Cramp be thou faintless, As our Lady was sinless When she bare Jesus."

Demoniacal Possession.—To know when a person is possessed, try the following, says King: "Take the harte and liver of a fysshe called a Pyck, and put them into a pot wyth glowynge hot coles, and hold the same to the patient so that the smoke may entre into hym. If he is possessed he cannot abyde that smoke, but rageth and is angry." "It is good also to make a fyre in hys chamber of Juniper wood, and caste into the fire Franckincense and S. John's wort, for the evill spirits cannot abyde thys sent, and Waxe angry, whereby may be perceived whether a man be possessed or not."[139] I am afraid that possession would be sadly common if either of these tests were applied.

Dislocation.—Among the oldest charms we have is one given by Cato the Censor for the reduction of a dislocated limb, and passed on to us by Pettigrew.

"A dislocation may be cured by this charm. Take a reed four or five feet long; cut it in the middle, and let two men hold the points towards each other for insertion. While this is doing repeat these words: In Alio S. F. Motas vaeta, Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapitur. Now jerk a piece of iron upon the reeds at their juncture, and cut right and left. Bind them to the dislocation or fracture, and it will effect a cure."[140]

Dropsy.—Toads were formed into a powder called Pulvis AEthiopicus, the mode of preparation being given in Bates's Pharmacopoeia. This powder was used externally, and also given internally in cases of dropsy and other diseases.

Epilepsy.—The liver of a dead athlete was a sovereign remedy against epilepsy in early days. In Lincolnshire a portion of a human skull taken from a grave was grated and given to epileptics as a cure for fits, and the water in which a corpse had been washed was given to a man in Glasgow for the same purpose.[141] Another remedy was also proposed: "If a man be greved wyth the fallinge sicknesse, let him take a he-Wolves harte and make it to pouder and use it: but if it be a woman, let her take a she-Wolves harte."[142]

John of Gladdesden, who was court physician from 1305-1317, spoke thus concerning epilepsy: "Because there are many children and others afflicted with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the following experiment be tried, which I have found to be effectual, whether the patient was a demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When the patient and his parents have fasted three days, let them conduct him to church. If he be of a proper age, and of his right senses, let him confess. Then let him hear Mass on Friday, and also on Saturday. On Sunday let a good and religious priest read over the head of the patient, in the church, the gospel which is read in September, in the time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this, let the priest write the same gospel devoutly, and let the patient wear it about his neck, and he shall be cured. The gospel is, 'This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.'"[143]

Among some African tribes the foot of an elk is considered a splendid remedy against epilepsy. One foot only of each animal possesses virtue, and the way to ascertain the valuable foot is to "knock the beast down, when he will immediately lift up that leg which is most efficacious to scratch his ear. Then you must be ready with a sharp scymitar to lop off the medicinal limb, and you shall find an infallible remedy against the falling sickness treasured up in his claws." The American Indians and mediaeval Norwegians also considered this a sure remedy. The person afflicted, however, must apply it to his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.[144]

Evil-eye.—Children were supposed to be most susceptible to the evil-eye. Charms and amulets were furnished against fascination in general. Certain figures in bronze, coral, ivory, etc., representing a closed hand with the thumb thrust out between the first and second fingers called the fig, were common. In Henry IV, Part II, Pistol says:

"When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like The bragging Spaniard."

Eye Diseases.—Among the early Germans, ambulatory female medicists were not uncommon, and they cured largely through charms. The following is a charm used for eye diseases:

"Three maidens once going On a verdant highway; One could cure blindness, Another cured cataract, Third cured inflammation; But all cured by one means."[145]

Fevers.—This charm was used for fever: "Wryt thys Wordys on a lorell lef[+]Ysmael[+]Ysmael[+] adjuro vos per Angelum ut soporetur iste Homo N. and ley thys lef under hys head that he wete not therof, and let hym ete Letuse oft and drynk Ip'e seed smal grounden in a morter, and temper yt with Ale."[146]

"The fever," says Werenfels, "he will not drive away by medicines, but, what is a more certain remedy, having pared his nails and tied them to a crayfish, he will turn his back, and as Deucalion did the stones from which a new progeny of men arose, throw them behind him into the next river."[147]

The "Leech book"[148] says that for typhus fever the patient is to drink of a decoction of herbs over which many masses have been sung, then say the names of the four "gospellers" and a charm and a prayer. Again, a man is to write a charm in silence, and just as silently put the words in his left breast and take care not to go in-doors with the writing upon him, the words being EMMANUEL VERONICA. The Loseley MSS. prescribe the following for all manner of fevers: "Take iii drops of a woman's mylke yt norseth a knave childe, and do it in a hennes egge that ys sedentere (or sitting), and let hym suppe it up when the evyl takes hym."

Goitre.—The dew collected from the grave of the last man buried in a church-yard has been used as a lotion for goitre, and a correspondent of Notes and Queries for May 24, 1851, furnishes two remedies then in use at Withyam, Sussex. "A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn by someone standing by nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for awhile. Afterwards the snake is put alive in a bottle, which is corked tightly, and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake decays, the swelling vanishes. The second mode of treatment is just the same as the above, with the exception of the snake's doom. In this case it is kidded, and its skin, sewn in a piece of silk, is worn round the diseased neck. By degrees the swelling in this case also disappears."

Headache.—In Brand's day, the rope which remained after a man had been hanged and cut down was an object of eager competition, being regarded as of great virtue in attacks of headache, and Gross says: "Moss growing on a human skull, if dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, will cure the Headach." Loadstone was also recommended as a sovereign remedy for this malady. Pliny said that any person might be immediately cured of the headache by the application of any plant which has grown on the head of a statue, provided it be folded in the shred of a garment, and tied to the part affected with a red string.

Hemorrhage.—The following charm has been used to stop bleeding at the nose and other hemorrhages:

"In the blood of Adam Sin was taken, In the blood of Christ it was all shaken, And by the same blood I do the charge, That the blood of (insert name) run no longer at large."

Pepys in his Diary gives us a Latin charm of which the following is a translation:

"Blood remain in Thee, As Christ was in himself; Blood remain in thy veins, As Christ in his pains; Blood remain fixed, As Christ was on the crucifix."

Brand, the historian of Orkney, says: "They have a charm whereby they stop excessive bleeding in any, whatever way they come by it, whether by or without external violence. The name of the Patient being sent to the Charmer, he saith over some words, (which I heard,) upon which the blood instantly stoppeth, though the bleeding Patient were at the greatest distance from the Charmer. Yea, upon the saying of these words, the blood will stop in the bleeding throats of oxen or sheep, to the astonishment of Spectators. Which account we had from the Ministers of the Country."

Boyle says: "Having been one summer frequently subject to bleeding at the nose, and reduced to employ several remedies to check that distemper; that which I found the most effectual to stanch the blood was some moss of a dead man's skull, (sent for a present out of Ireland, where it is far less rare than in most other countries,) though it did but touch my skin, till the herb was a little warmed by it."[149]

Brand gives "A charme to staunch blood: Jesus that was in Bethleem born, and baptyzed was in the flumen Jordane, as stente the water at hys comyng, so stente the blood of thys man N. thy servvaunt, thorw the virtu of thy holy Name [] Jesu [] & of thy Cosyn swete Sent Jon. And sey thys charme fyve tymes with fyve Pater Nosters, in the worschep of the fyve woundys."[150]

"In the year 1853," says Berdoe, "I saw among the more precious drugs in the shop of a pharmaceutical chemist at Leamington a bottle labelled in the ordinary way with the words, Moss from a Dead-Man's Skull. This has long been used, superstitiously, dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, for headache and bleeding at the nose."

Herpes.—Turner[151] notices a prevalent charm among old women for the shingles, and which is not uncommonly heard of to-day. It was to smear on the affected part the blood from a black cat's tail. He says that in the only case when he saw it used it caused considerable mischief.

Incubus.—Stones with holes through them were commonly called hag-stones, and were often attached to the key of the stable door to prevent witches riding the horses. One of these suspended at the head of the bed was celebrated for the prevention of nightmare. In the "Leech book"[152] we find the following: "If a mare or hag ride a man, take lupins, garlic, and betony, and frankincense, bind them on a fawn skin, let a man have the worts on him, and let him go into his house." Notice the following from Lluellin's poems:

"Some the night-mare hath prest With that weight on their brest, No returnes of their breath can passe, But to us the tale is addle, We can take off her saddle, And turn out the night-mare to grasse."

Insomnia.—In the Loseley MSS. we find a receipt "For hym that may not slepe. Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of lether: Ismael! Ismael! adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur homo iste; and lay this under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof and use it allway lytell, and lytell, as he have nede yerto."

Jaundice.—This disease was sometimes cured by transplantation, and Paracelsus gives us a method for carrying this out. Make seven or nine—it must be an odd number—cakes of the newly emitted and warm urine of the patient with the ashes of ash wood, and bury them for some days in a dunghill.

In the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas Browne, we read of a magical cure for jaundice: "Burne wood under a leaden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle it with the patient's urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyled ashes upon a board in a ranke, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus: it hath greater effects than is credible to any one that shall barely read this receipt without experiencing."[153]

Madness.—The early inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water from St. Nun's well. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was, by a sudden blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him; he was then carried to church, and certain masses were sung over him. A similar practice of the people of Perthshire is noticed by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion.

"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well, Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel, And the crazed brain restore."

Marasmus.—Mr. Boyle relates the case of a physician whose wan face betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike the sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own warm urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places, and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to abate and his strength to increase, insomuch that his disease left him."[154]

Rickets.—The most common method of dealing with this disease was by drawing the children through a split tree. The tree was afterward bound up and, as it healed and grew together, the children acquired strength; at least, so 'twas said. Sir John Cullum saw the operation performed and says that the ash tree was selected as most preferable for the purpose. "It was split longitudinally about five feet: the fissure was kept open by the gardener, whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. This accomplished, the tree was bound up with packthread, and as the bark healed, so it was said the child would recover. One of the cases was of rickets, the other a rupture." Drawing the children through a perforated stone was also a cure for rickets, providing that two brass pins were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of this stone.[155]

Sciatica.—Sleeping on stones on a particular night was formerly practised in Cornwall to cure all forms of lameness. Boneshave was the term used for sciatica in Exmoor, where the following charm was used for its cure: The patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook, having a straight staff lying by his side between him and the water, and must have the following words repeated over him:

"Boneshave right, Boneshave straight. As the water runs by the stave Good for Boneshave."[156]

Scrofula.—Scrofula, or "king's-evil," was best cured by the touch of the sovereign, but, if this could not be accomplished, a naked virgin could cure it, especially if she spit three times upon it. Stroking the affected parts nine times with the hand of a dead man, particularly of one who had suffered a violent death as a penalty of his crime, especially if it be murder, was long practised, and was said to be efficacious in curing scrofula.

Sweating Sickness.—Aubrey[157] gives a selection of the favorite prescriptions in use against the sweating sickness. Among them was the following: "Another very true medicine.—For to say every day at seven parts of your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one Credo at the last. Ye shall begyn at the ryght syde, under the right ere, saying the 'paternoster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,' with a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full complete, and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then under the left armhole, and then under the left hole, and then the last at the heart, with one paternoster, Ave Maria with one Credo; and these thus said daily, with the grace of God is there no manner drede hym."

Thorns.—Three metrical charms have been used for troubles of this kind. Pepys' Diary records "A charme for a thorne":

"Jesus, that was of a Virgin Born, Was pricked both with nail and thorn; It neither wealed, nor belled, rankled nor boned; In the name of Jesus no more shall this."

Another form of the same is this:

"Christ was of a Virgin born, And he was pricked with a thorn; It did neither bell, nor swell; And I trust in Jesus this never will."

Brand gives another thus:

"Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born, And on his head he wore the crown of thorn; If you believe this true and mind it well, This hurt will never fester, nor yet swell."[158]

Toothache.—King in his interesting article recites this cure: "Seeth as many little green frogges sitting upon trees as thou canst get, in water: take the fat flowynge from them, and when nede is, anoynt the teth therwyth. The graye worms breathing under wood or stone, having many fete, these perced through with a bodken and then put into the toth, alayeth the payne."[159] A nail driven into an oak tree is reported to be a cure for this pain, and bones from a church-yard have from ancient times been used as charms against this disease.

An early idea was that toothache was caused by a worm and that henbane seed roasted would cure it. The following from "The School of Salerne" formulates this superstition:

"If in your teeth you hap to be tormented, By meane some little wormes therein do breed, Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented, Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede; Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented), Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed, And with a tunnel to the tooth that's hollow, Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow."

Even to-day, I suppose, druggists sell henbane seed for this purpose. The seed is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders and holding the open mouth over the rising smoke. The heat causes the seed to sprout, and thus there appears something similar to a maggot, which is ignorantly supposed by the sufferer to have dropped from the tooth.[160]

Warts.—The cures for warts are many and varied. There have been many charms devised for their removal. Grose gives directions to "Steal a piece of beef from a butcher's shop, and rub your wart with it, then throw it down the necessary house, or bury it, and as the beef rots, your warts will decay."[161] Some have great faith in having a vagrant count them, mark the number on the inside of his hat, and then when he leaves the neighborhood he takes the warts with him. Coffin water was also considered good for them.

"For warts," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we rub our hands before the moon, and commit any magulated part to the touch of the dead. Old Women were always famous for curing warts; they were so in Lucian's time."[162]

Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work already referred to, says: "One would think that it were folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a well-polished silver basin, wherein there is not a drop of water, yet this may be done by the reflection of the moonbeams only, which will afford it a competent humidity to do it; but they who have tried it, have found their hands, after they are wiped, to be much moister than usually; but this is an infallible way to take away warts from the hands, if it be often used."

Black gives us several ways of charming away warts. He says: "Lancashire wise men tell us for warts to rub them with a cinder, and this tied up in paper, and dropped where four roads meet, will transfer the warts to whoever opens the parcel. Another mode of transferring warts is to touch each wart with a pebble, and place the pebbles in a bag, which should be lost on the way to church; whoever finds the bag gets the warts." A common Warwickshire custom was to rub the warts with a black snail, stick the snail on a thorn bush, and then, say the folks, as the snail dies so will the wart disappear.[163]

Warts, on the other hand, seem in certain cases to be considered lucky. In "Syr Gyles Goosecappe, Knight," a play of 1606, Lord Momford is made to say: "The Creses here are excellent good: the proportion of the chin good; the little aptnes of it to sticke out; good. And the wart aboue it most exceeding good."

Wen.—A newspaper of 1777 reports: "After he (Doctor Dodd) had hung about ten minutes, a very decently dressed young woman went up to the gallows in order to have a wen in her face stroked by the Doctor's hand; it being a received opinion among the vulgar that it is a certain cure for such a disorder. The executioner, having untied the Doctor's hand, stroked the part affected several times therewith."

At the execution of Crowley, a murderer of Warwick, in 1845, a similar scene is described in the newspapers: "At least five thousand persons of the lowest of the low were mustered on this occasion to witness the dying moments of the unhappy culprit.... As is usual in such cases (to their shame be it spoken) a number of females were present, and scarcely had the soul of the deceased taken its farewell flight from its earthly tabernacle, than the scaffold was crowded with members of the 'gentler sex' afflicted with wens in the neck, with white swellings in the knees, &c., upon whose afflictions the cold clammy hand of the sufferer was passed to and fro for the benefit of his executioner."[164]

Whooping-Cough.—It was a common belief in Devonshire, Cornwall, and some other parts of England, that if one inquired of any one riding on a piebald horse of a remedy for this complaint, whatever he named was regarded as an infallible cure. In Suffolk and Norfolk, a favorite remedy was to put the head of a suffering child for a few minutes into a hole made in a meadow. It must be done in the evening with only the father and mother to witness it.

A child in Cornwall received the following treatment: "If afflicted with the hooping cough, it is fed with the bread and butter of a family, the heads of which bear respectively the names of John and Joan. In the time of an epidemic, so numerous are the applications, that the poor couple have little reason to be grateful to their godfathers and godmothers for their gift of these particular names. Or, if a piebald horse is to be found in the neighbourhood, the child is taken to it, and passed thrice under the belly of the animal; the mere possession of such a beast confers the power of curing the disease."

We have an account of a cure for whooping-cough in a Monmouthshire paper about the middle of the nineteenth century. "A few days since an unusual circumstance was observed at Pillgwenlly, which caused no small degree of astonishment to one or two enlightened beholders. A patient ass stood near a house, and a family of not much more rational animals was grouped around it. A father was passing his little son under the donkey, and lifting him over its back a certain number of times, with as much solemnity and precision as if engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. This done, the father took a piece of bread, cut from an untasted loaf, which he offered the animal to bite at. Nothing loath, the Jerusalem poney laid hold of the piece of bread with his teeth, and instantly the father severed the outer portion of the slice from that in the donkey's mouth. He next clipped off some hairs from the neck of the animal, which he cut up into minute particles, and then mixed them with the bread which he had crumbled. This very tasty food was then offered to the boy who had been passed round the donkey so mysteriously, and the little fellow having eaten thereof, the donkey was removed by his owners. The father, his son, and other members of his family were moving off, when a bystander inquired what all these 'goings on' had been adopted for? The father stared at the ignorance of the inquirer, and then in a half contemptuous, half condescending tone, informed him that 'it was to cure his poor son's whooping-cough, to be sure!' Extraordinary as this may appear, in days when the schoolmaster is so much in request, it is nevertheless true."

There is a belief in Cheshire that, if a toad is held for a moment within the mouth of the patient, it is apt to catch the disease, and so cure the person suffering from it. A correspondent of Notes and Queries speaks of a case in which such a phenomenon actually occurred; but the experiment is one which would not be very willingly tried. Brand informs us that "Roasted mice were formerly held in Norfolk a sure remedy for this complaint; nor is it certain that the belief is extinct even now. A poor woman's son once found himself greatly relieved after eating three roast mice!"[165]

Worms.—A Scotch writer in the last half of the seventeenth century observed: "In the Miscellaneous MSS. ... written by Baillie Dundee, among several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated three mornings, as a certain remedy."[166]

[122] S. B. Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 273.

[123] H. Morley, Life of Cornelius Agrippa, I, p. 165.

[124] M. Thiers, Traite des Superstitions, p. 436.

[125] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.

[126] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 72.

[127] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 229 f.

[128] Ibid., III, pp. 228 and 237.

[129] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 94 f.

[130] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 252 f.

[131] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 416.

[132] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Surgery and Medicine, pp. 104-106.

[133] Pepys' Diary, I, p. 323.

[134] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 113-115.

[135] History of Moray, p. 248.

[136] History of Medicine, p. 159.

[137] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 240 and 248.

[138] I, p. 324.

[139] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 149.

[140] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 77.

[141] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Medical Art, pp. 397 and 414.

[142] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.

[143] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 327.

[144] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 84 f.

[145] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 196.

[146] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 237.

[147] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 92.

[148] II, p. 139.

[149] Ibid., pp. 112 f.

[150] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 237, 241, and 268.

[151] Diseases of the Skin, p. 82.

[152] II, p. 139.

[153] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 103.

[154] Ibid., p. 102.

[155] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 249 f.

[156] Ibid., p. 245.

[157] History of England, II, p. 296.

[158] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 264.

[159] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 148.

[160] E. Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 414 f.

[161] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 108.

[162] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.

[163] Berdoe, Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 415 f.

[164] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.

[165] Ibid., p. 239.

[166] Ibid., p. 240.



CHAPTER IX

ROYAL TOUCH

"Men may die of imagination, So depe may impression be take."—CHAUCER.

"When time shall once have laid his lenient hand on the passions and pursuits of the present moment, they too shall lose that imaginary value which heated fancy now bestows upon them."—BLAIR.

"The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it does to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing."—SHAKESPEARE.

Malcolm. Comes the king forth, I pray you?

Doctor. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, They presently amend.

Malcolm. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor.

Macduff. What's the disease he means?

Malcolm. 'Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king, Which often, since my here remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures; Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction.—Macbeth, Act iv, Sc. 3.

Perhaps we have no better example of the effect of the belief in healers than that presented by what was known as "king's touch." It is typical of the cures performed by healers, and on that account I shall give a rather full account of the phenomenon.

Touching by the sovereign for the amelioration of sundry diseases was a currently accepted therapeutic measure. The royal touch was especially efficacious in epilepsy and scrofula, the latter being consequently known as "king's-evil." So far as we are able to trace this practice in history, it began with Edward the Confessor in England and St. Louis in France. There has been not a little dispute concerning its real origin. "Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV, of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to derive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the power to have commenced with Clovis I, A. D. 481, and says that Louis I, A. D. 814, added to the ceremonial of touching, the sign of the cross. Mezeray also says, that St. Louis, through humility, first added the sign of the cross in touching for the king's evil."[167]



William of Malmesbury gives the origin of the royal touch in his account of the miracles of Edward the Confessor. "A young woman had married a husband of her own age, but having no issue by the union, the humours collecting abundantly about her neck, she had contracted a sore disorder, the glands swelling in a dreadful manner. Admonished in a dream to have the part affected washed by the king, she entered the palace, and the king himself fulfilled this labour of love, by rubbing the woman's neck with his fingers dipped in water. Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid skin opened, so that worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the tumour subsided. But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he commanded her to be supported at the royal expense until she should be perfectly cured. However, before a week had expired, a fair new skin returned, and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins, she increased the admiration of Edward's holiness. Those who knew him more intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy; whence appears how false is the notion, who in our times assert, that the cure of this disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but from hereditary virtue in the royal line."[168] The fact that Edward was a saint as well as a king throws some light on the subject, for many miracles were attributed to him. Jeremy Collier maintained that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon all his successors, but we find that not blood but royal prestige was the secret. He said "that this prince cured the king's evil is beyond dispute: and since the credit of this miracle is unquestionable, I see no reason why we should scruple believing the rest.... King Edward the Confessor was the first that cured this distemper, and from him it has descended as an hereditary miracle upon all his successors. To dispute the matter of fact, is to go to the excesses of skepticism, to deny our senses, and be incredulous even to ridiculousness."[169]

The quotation given above from William of Malmesbury is the earliest mention of the gift of healing by the royal touch. No historian at or near the time of Edward has alluded to the supposed power vested in him. Not even the bull of Pope Alexander III, by which Edward was canonized about two centuries after his decease, makes any allusion whatever to the cures effected by him through the imposition of hands.

English and French writers have disagreed not only regarding the origin, but also regarding the real possession of the power, the English denying it to the French kings and the French with equal vigor restricting it to their own sovereigns. There seems to be little doubt that the sovereigns of both nations made cures, but the healing was confined to these two royal families; the intermarriages in the two families probably account for the belief in the transmission of the gift, regardless of the origin.

The ability to heal certain diseases passed down from reign to reign notwithstanding the religious belief, the character, or the legitimate succession of the sovereign, to the time of Queen Anne. It must not be supposed that the practice was continuous for the seven centuries from Edward the Confessor to Anne: we have no record whatever of the first four Norman kings attempting to cure any one by the imposition of hands, and we know that William III refused to attempt healing. Andrew Boorde defines king's-evil as an "euyl sickenes or impediment," and advises as follows: "For this matter let euery man make frendes to the Kynges maiestie, for it doth pertayne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie by the grace the whiche is geuen to a Kynge anoynted." In his Introduction to Knowledge (1547-1548) he continues: "The Kynges of England by the power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make sicke men whole of a sickeness called the kynges euyll."[170]

There is a curious passage in Aubrey in which he says: "The curing of the King's Evil by the touch of the king, does much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure for the most part." Sir John Fortescue, in defending the House of Lancaster against the House of York, claimed that the crown could not descend to a female because the Queen was not qualified by the form of anointing her to cure the disease called the king's-evil. It must have been very comforting to all concerned to find that the power to cure disease by the royal touch had not been affected by the change of sex of the reigning sovereign.

The gift was not impaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Roman Catholic was converted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's excommunication, could cure his scrofula. Elizabeth, however, could not bring herself fully to accept the reality of these cures. She continued the practice on account of the pressure of public opinion, but upon one occasion she told a multitude of afflicted ones who had applied to her for relief, "God alone can cure your diseases." Dr. Tooker, the Queen's chaplain, though, certified freely to his own knowledge of the cures wrought by her, as did also William Cowles, the Queen's surgeon. Robert Laneham's letter, concerning the Queen's visit to Kenilworth Castle, relates how, on July 18, 1575, her Majesty touched for the evil, and that it was a "day of grace." "By her highnes accustumed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynfull and daungerous diseaz, called the king's euill; for that Kings and Queenz of this Realm withoout oother medsin (saue only by handling and prayerz) only doo cure it."

James I wished to drop it as a worn-out superstition, but was warned by his advisers that to do so would be to abate a prerogative of the crown; the practice therefore continued, and good testimony exists as to the cures wrought by him. The following is an extract from a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at The Hague, dated London, 14th November, 1618: "The Turkish Chiaus is shortly coming for the Hagh. On Tuesday last he took leave of the king, and thanked his majesty for healing his sonne of the kinges evill; which his majesty performed with all solemnity at Whitehall on Thursday was sevenight." Charles I also enjoyed the same power, notwithstanding the public declaration by Parliament "to inform the people of the superstition of being touched by the king for the evil." When a prisoner he cured a man by simply saying, "God bless thee and grant thee thy desire," the Puritans not permitting him to touch the patient. Whereupon it is asserted by Dr. John Nicholas on his own knowledge, the blotches and humors disappeared from the patient's body and appeared in the bottle of medicine which he held in his hand. Charles's blood had the same efficacy. This sovereign substituted in some cases the giving of a piece of silver instead of the gold, which was usually presented to the patient. Badger says that this king "excelled all his predecessors in the divine gift; for it is manifest beyond all contradiction, that he not only cured by his sacred touch, both with and without gold, but likewise perfectly effected the same cure by his prayer and benediction only." In his reign the gift was exercised at certain seasons of the year, Easter and Michaelmas being at first set apart for this purpose. A further regulation, which is quite suggestive, was that the patient must present a certificate to the effect that he had never before been touched for the disease.

The following incident is related concerning Charles I: "A young gentlewoman of about sixteen years of age, Elizabeth Stevens, of Winchester, came (7 October, 1648) into the presence-chamber to be touched for the evill, which she was supposed to have; and therewith one of her eyes (that namely on the left side) was so much indisposed, that by her owne and her mother's testimony (who was then also present), she had not seene with that eye of above a month before. After prayers, read by Dr. Sanderson, the maide kneeled downe among others, likewise to be touched. And his majestie touched her, and put a ribbon, with a piece of money at it, in usuall manner, about her neck. Which done, his majesty turned to the lords (viz., the duke of Richmond, the earl of Southampton, and the earl of Lindsey) to discourse with them. And the said young gentlewoman of her own accord said openly: 'Now, God be praised! I can see of this fore eye.' And afterwards declared she did see more and more by it, & could, by degrees, endure the light of the candle. All which his majestie, in the presence of the said lords & many others, examined himself, & found to be true. And it hath since been discovered that, some months agone, the said young gentlewoman professed that, as soon as she was come of age sufficient, she would convey over to the king's use all her land; which to the valew of about L130 per annum, her father deceased had left her sole heyre unto."[171]

Charles II, perhaps the most unworthy of English monarchs, was by far the busiest healer, and even while in exile in the Netherlands he retained the power to cure. In one month he touched two hundred and sixty at Breda, and Lower said: "It was not without success, since it was the experience that drew thither every day a great number of those diseased even from the most remote provinces of Germany." An official register of the persons touched was kept for every month in his reign, but about two and a half years appear to be wanting. The smallest number he touched in one year was 2,983; that was in 1669. In 1682 he touched 8,500 persons. In 1684 the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to death. The total number touched in his reign was 92,107.[172] It is instructive to note, however, that while in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofula and so many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of that disease.[173]

John Browne, surgeon in ordinary to his majesty and to St. Thomas's Hospital, and author of many learned works on surgery and anatomy, published accounts of sixty cures due to this monarch. He says a surgeon attested the reality of the disease before the miracle was performed, to exclude impostors who were seeking the gold, for, in addition to the regular formula, the king hung about the neck of the person touched a ribbon to which was attached a gold coin. Notwithstanding these stringent measures, some were able to impose on the king, for the coins were often found in the shops, having been sold by the recipients. Says Brand: "Barrington tells us of an old man who was a witness in a cause, and averred that when Queen Anne was at Oxford, she touched him whilst a child for the evil. Barrington, when he had finished his evidence, 'asked him whether he was really cured? upon which he answered with a significant smile, that he believed himself never to have had a complaint that deserved to be considered as the Evil, but that his parents were poor, and had no objection to the bit of gold.'"[174]

While it was not unknown before, the presentation of a piece of gold was first generally introduced in the reign of Henry VII. It probably descended from a practice common in the time of Edward III, whose coin, the rose-noble, is said to have been worn as an amulet to preserve from danger in battle. The angel-noble of Henry VII, valued at ten shillings, appears to have been the coin given; it was in common use and not made especially for this purpose. It had the figure of the Archangel Michael on one side and a ship in full sail on the other. Before hanging it on the patient's neck the monarch always crossed the sore with it. The outlay for gold coins presented to the afflicted on these occasions rose in some years as high as L10,000. So great was the expense that after the reign of Elizabeth the size of the coin was reduced. Touching pieces of the time of Charles II are not rare even now.

In 1684 Surgeon John Browne published a curious work entitled Adenochoiradelogia: or an Anatomick-Chirurgical Treatise on Glandules and Strumaes, or King's Evil Swellings. In this the author traces the gift of healing from our Saviour to the apostles, and thence by a continuous line of Christian kings and governors, and holy men, commencing with Edward the Confessor, whom he regards as the first curer of scrofula by contact or imposition of hands. After referring to his majesty in most flattering terms, he continues concerning "the admirable effects and wonderful events of his royal cure throughout all nations, where not only English, Dutch, Scotch, and Irish have reaped ease and cure, but French, Germans, and all countreyes whatsoever, far and near, have abundantly seen and received the same: and none ever, hitherto, I am certain, mist thereof, unless their little faith and incredulity starved their merits, or they received his gracious hand for curing another disease, which was not really evermore allowed to be cured by him; and as bright evidences hereof, I have presumed to offer that some have immediately upon the very touch been cured; others not so easily quitted from their swellings till the favor of a second repetition thereof. Some also, losing their gold, their diseases have seized them afresh, and no sooner have these obtained a second touch, and new gold, but their diseases have been seen to vanish, as being afraid of his majesties presence; wherein also have been cured many without gold; and this may contradict such who must needs have the king give them gold as well as his touch, supposing one invalid without the gift of both. Others seem also as ready for a second change of gold as a second touch, whereas their first being newly strung upon white riband, may work as well (by their favour). The tying the Almighty to set times and particular days is also another great fault of those who can by no means be brought to believe but at Good Friday and the like seasons this healing faculty is of more vigour and efficacy than at any other time, although performed by the same hand. As to the giving of gold, this only shows his majesties royal well-wishes towards the recovery of those who come thus to be healed."[175] He refers to some "Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees" who disbelieved, and he gives the letter of one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his friends, and came away cured and converted.

Browne includes the following case which seems to him conclusive: "A Nonconformist child, in Norfolk, being troubled with scrofulous swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, being consulted about the same, his majesty being then at Breda or Bruges, he advised the parents of the child to have it carried over to the king (his own method being used ineffectively); the father seemed very strange at this advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the king was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed with her husband to let it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being granted, the friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father, carried it to Breda, where the king touched it, and she returned home perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and he finding so great an alteration, inquires how his daughter arrived at this health. The friends thereof assured him, that if he would not be angry with them, they would relate the whole truth; they, having his promise for the same, assured him they had the child to be touched at Breda, whereby they apparently let him see the great benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the father became so amazed that he threw off his Nonconformity, and expressed his thanks in this manner: 'Farewell to all dissenters, and to all nonconformists; if God can put so much virtue into the king's hand as to heal my child, I'll serve that God and that king so long as I live, with all thankfulness.'"[176] It is unfortunate that we have a change of air and food to consider in this case, else we might have a good example of a real miracle.

Friday was usually set apart in this reign as the regular day for healing, but, in addition to this, special portions of the church year were reserved for the exercise of this gift. Very careful examinations were made by the surgeons, and those who were found to be suffering from the evil were presented with a ticket by the surgeon which entitled them to receive the healing touch of the king. If the king's touch were really efficacious, one might think that the disease should have been wholly exterminated during this reign, so great were the number touched. On the contrary, the deaths were more numerous, and on account of the neglect of medical and surgical means it spread very widely.

James II, it is said by Dr. Heylin, also wrought cures upon babes in their mothers' arms, and the fame of these cures was so great that the year before James was dethroned, a pauper of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioned the general assembly to enable him to make the voyage to England to be healed by the royal touch. In one of his progresses James touched eight hundred persons in Chester Cathedral.

William III evidently thought of the matter as a superstition, and on one occasion he touched a patient, saying to him, "God give you better health and more sense"; notwithstanding the incredulity of the sovereign, Whiston assures us that the person was healed. With honest good sense, however, William refused to exercise the power which most of his subjects undoubtedly thought he possessed, and many protests were made, and much proof was adduced concerning "the balsamic virtues of the royal hand." This refusal to continue the practice of touching brought upon him the charge of cruelty from the parents of scrofulous children, while bigots lifted up their hands and eyes in holy horror at his impiety.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the last persons to receive the imposition of royal hands; when a boy of four and a half years, he was touched by Queen Anne, together with about two hundred others, on March 30, 1712. In his case at least the touch was inefficacious, for he was subject to scrofula all his life. Boswell says:[177] "His mother, yielding to the superstitious notion, which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the virtue of the royal touch; a notion which our kings encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte could give credit, carried him to London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson, indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Litchfield." At this time few persons but Jacobites believed in king's touch as a miracle. Dr. Daniel Turner, though, relates that several cases of scrofula which had been unsuccessfully treated by himself and Dr. Charles Bernard, sergeant-surgeon to her majesty, yielded afterwards to the efficacy of the queen's touch.

During the reign of Anne the sceptics outnumbered the believers and at her death the practice was discontinued. Among the unbelievers was the above-mentioned Dr. Charles Bernard, an account of whose conversion is given by Oldmixon as follows: "Yesterday the queen was graciously pleased to touch for the King's evil some particular persons in private; and three weeks after, December 19, yesterday, about twelve at noon her majesty was pleased to touch, at St. James', about twenty persons afflicted with the King's evil. The more ludicrous sort of skeptics, in this case, asked why it was not called the queen's evil, as the chief court of justice was called the Queen's Bench. But Charles Bernard, the surgeon who had made this touching the subject of his raillery all his lifetime till he became body surgeon at court, and found it a good perquisite, solved all difficulties by telling his companions with a fleer 'Really one could not have thought it, if one had not seen it.' A friend of mine heard him say it, and knew well his opinion of it."[178]

In 1745 there was an attempted revival of the practice when Prince Charles Edward exercised this prerogative of royalty.

Henry VII was the first monarch to establish a particular ceremony to be observed at the healings. He probably derived this from an old form of exorcism used for the dispossessing of evil spirits. This was altered at various times but may still be found in the prayer-book of the reign of Queen Anne. Indeed, it was not until some time after the accession of George I that the University of Oxford ceased to reprint the office of healing, together with the Liturgy.

The routes to be travelled by royal personages and the days on which the miracle was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and the clergy of all the parish churches of the realm were solemnly notified. They, in turn, informed the people, and the sufferers along the way had many days in which to cherish the expectation of healing, in itself so beneficial. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity and pomp. It has been vividly described by Macaulay as follows: "When the appointed time came, several divines in full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick. A passage of Mark 16. was read. When the words 'They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover,' had been pronounced, there was a pause and one of the sick was brought to the king. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and swellings, and hung round the patient's neck a white ribbon to which was fastened a gold coin. The other sufferers were led up in succession; and as each was touched the chaplain repeated the incantation, 'They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover.' Then came the epistle, prayers, antiphonies, and a benediction."

Evelyn, in his Diary, gives us the form employed by Charles II in July, 1660, as follows: "His Majestie first began to touch for evil according to costume, thus—His majestie sitting under his state in the Banquetting House, the Chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, the King strokes their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant a Chaplaine in his formalities says: 'He put his hands on them and he healed them.' This is sayed to every one in particular. When they have all been touched they come up againe in the same order; and the other Chaplaine kneeling, and having angel-gold strung on white ribbon on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Majestie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, whilst the first Chaplaine repeats: 'That is the true light who came into the world.' Then follows an Epistle (as at first, a Gospel) with the Liturgy, prayers for the sick with some alteration, lastly the blessing: and the Lo. Chamberlaine and Comptroller of the Household, bring a basin, ewer, and towel for his Majestie to wash."[179]

The belief in the efficacy of the king's touch was general, and Lecky tells us its genuineness "was asserted by the privy council, by the bishops of two religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest days of the English Church, by the University of Oxford, and by the enthusiastic assent of the people. It survived the ages of the Reformation, of Bacon, of Milton, and of Hobbes. It was by no means extinct at the age of Locke, and would probably have lasted still longer, had not the change of dynasty at the Revolution assisted the tardy scepticism."[180]

In France there was the same belief in the efficacy of the royal touch. Philip I exercised the gift, but the French historians say that he was deprived of the power on account of the irregularity of his life. Laurentius reports that Francis I, when a prisoner in Spain, cured a great number of people of struma (scrofula). A paraphrase of the Latin verse which Lascaris wrote concerning this event is as follows:

"The king applies his hand, diseases fly, And though a captive, still the powers on high Regard his touch. This striking proof is giv'n, That they who bound him are the foes of Heav'n."

Concerning the touching by the kings of France, Pettigrew says: "In the church of St. Maclou, in St. Denys, Heylin (Cosmograph., p. 184) says the kings of France, with a fast of nine days and other penances, used to receive the gift of healing the king's evil with nothing but a touch. Philip de Comines states, that the king always confessed before the cure of the king's evil. Butler (Lives of the Saints, vol. VIII, p. 394) says, 'The French kings usually only perform this ceremony on the day they have received the holy communion.' The historians who write under the first two families of the French kings are altogether silent as to the kings' curing the evil by the touching. (Veyrard Trav., p. 109.) Philip of Valois is reported to have cured 1400 people afflicted with the king's evil. Of Louis XIII, it was said that he had assigned all his power to Cardinal Richelieu, except that of curing the king's evil. Carte says, some of the French writers ascribe the gift of healing to their king's devotion toward the relics of St. Marculf, in the church of Corbigny, in Champagne: to which the kings of France, immediately after their coronation at Rheims, used to go in solemn procession. A veneration was also paid to this saint in England, and a room in memory of him, in the palace of Westminster, has frequently been mentioned in the Rolls of Parliament, and which was called the Chamber of St. Marculf, being, as Carte conjectures, probably the place where the kings used to touch for the evil. This room was afterward called the Painted Chamber. The French kings practised the touch extensively. Gemelli, the traveller, states, that Louis XIV touched 1600 persons on Easter Sunday, 1686.[181] The words he used were, 'Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guerisse.' Every Frenchman received fifteen sous, and every foreigner thirty. The French kings kept up the practice to 1776."[182]

"Servetus," says Hammond, "who was not of a credulous mind, says in the first edition of his Ptolemy, published in 1535, that he had seen the king touch many persons for the disease, but he had never seen any that were cured thereby. But the last clause of this sentence excited the ire of the censor, and in the next edition, published in 1541, the words 'an sanati fuerint non vidi' were changed to 'pluresque sanatos passim audivi': 'I have heard of many that were cured.' Testimony in support of miracles has often been manufactured, but the natural obstinacy and truthfulness of Servetus would not admit of his giving his personal endorsement at the expense of his convictions."[183]

Within the last half-century we have had an example of the value of the royal touch. When cholera was raging in Naples in 1865, and the people were rushing from the city by thousands, King Victor Emmanuel went the rounds of the hospitals in an endeavor to stimulate courage in the hearts of his people. He lingered at the bedside of the patients and spoke encouraging words to them. On a cot lay one man already marked for death. The king stepped to his side, and pressing his damp, icy hand, said, "Take courage, poor man, and try to recover soon." That evening the physicians reported a diminution of the disease in the course of the day, and the man marked for death out of danger. The king had unconsciously worked a marvellous cure.[184]

It seems certain that there was not the efficacy in king's touch which was claimed for it, or it would not have been discontinued after having held sway for over seven hundred years. No doubt the quasi-religious character of the office of the sovereign helped much in the belief, and when such men as Charles II were able to heal, little connection between religion and healing could longer be thought possible, as far as the healing by king's touch was concerned.

The Hallowing of Cramp Rings was not unlike the king's touch. It is described by Bishop Percy in his Northumberland Household Book, where we have the following account: "And then the Usher to lay a Carpett for the Kinge to Creepe to the Crosse upon. An that done, there shal be a Forme sett upon the Carpett, before the Crucifix, and a Cushion laid upon it for the King to kneale upon. And the Master of the Jewell Howse ther to be ready with the Booke concerninge the Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on the right hand of the King, holdinge the sayde booke. When that is done the King shall rise and goe to the Alter, wheare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the Bason with the Rings and beare them after the Kinge to offer."

In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith, dated September 11, 158-, about a prevailing epidemic, and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear between her breasts, the said ring having "the virtue to expell infectious airs."

Andrew Boorde, already quoted, says: "The Kynges of England doth halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne on ones fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe."[185] Also, "The kynges majesty hath a great help in this matter, in hallowynge crampe rynges, and so given without money or petition."

In the account of the ceremony given by Hospinian, he states that "it was performed upon Good Friday, and that it originated from a ring which had been brought to King Edward by some persons from Jerusalem, and one which he himself hath long before given privately to a poor petitioner who asked alms of him for the love he bore to St. John the Evangelist. This ring was preserved with great veneration in Westminster Abbey, and whoever was touched by this relic was said to be cured of the cramp or of the falling sickness." Burnet informs us that Bishop Gardiner was at Rome in 1529, and that he wrote a letter to Ann Boleyn, by which it appears that Henry VIII blessed the cramp rings before as well as after the separation from Rome, and that she sent them as great presents thither.

"Mr. Stephens, I send you here cramp rings for you and Mr. Gregory and Mr. Peter, praying you to distribute them as you think best.—Ann Boleyn."[186]

This ceremonial was practised by previous sovereigns and discontinued by Edward VI. Queen Mary intended to revive it, and, indeed, the office for it was written out, but she does not appear to have carried her intentions into effect.

[167] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, pp. 154 f.

[168] E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 372.

[169] Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, I, p. 225.

[170] Quoted by Berdoe, ibid., p. 371.

[171] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, pp. 257 f.

[172] T. B. Macaulay, History of England, III, pp. 378 f.

[173] A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 47.

[174] J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, p. 256.

[175] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, pp. 182-184.

[176] Quoted by H. Tuke, Influence of the Mind upon the Body, pp. 359 f.

[177] Life of Johnson, I, p. 42.

[178] History of England, II, p. 302.

[179] Vol. I, p. 323.

[180] W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, p. 364.

[181] This was at Versailles.

[182] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, pp. 156 f.

[183] W. A. Hammond, Spiritism and Nervous Derangement, p. 150.

[184] C. L. Tuckey, Treatment by Hypnotism and Suggestion, p. 30.

[185] E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 371.

[186] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 117.



CHAPTER X

MESMER AND AFTER

"Some deemed them wondrous wise, And some believed them mad."—BEATTIE.

"A perfect medicine for bodies that be sick Of all infirmities to be relieved; This heleth nature and prolongeth lyfe eke."

Probably no one would claim that the phenomena now grouped under the head of hypnotism were unknown before the end of the sixteenth century. They are as old as man, yes, probably older, since we know that some of the same phenomena apply to animals. But the claim might well be made that while isolated facts of this kind were well known, especially in the East, no scientific collaboration and explanation were attempted until this time.

As with all other departments of science, we may trace a gradual development. Astrology of old taught the influence of the stars upon men, which doctrine was accepted by the great physician Theophrastus Paracelsus (1490-1541). This, however, was only part of his belief: the human body was endowed with a double magnetism; one portion attracted to itself the planets and was nourished by them, the result of which was the mental powers; the other portion attracted and disintegrated the elements, from which process resulted the body. He also claimed that the magnetic virtue of healthy persons attracted the enfeebled magnetism of the sick. With this theory of animal magnetism, it was only natural that he should value the use of the magnet very highly in the cure of diseases. This dual theory of magnetic cures, that of the magnetic influence of men on men and of the magnet on man, was prevalent for over a century, and found its latest exponent in Mesmer.

Following Paracelsus, Glocenius, Burgrave, Helinotius, Robert Fludd, and Kircher believed that the magnet represented the universal principle by which all natural phenomena might be explained. This principle, existing as it did in the human body, was an important factor in health and disease. The great chemist Von Helmont (1577-1644) taught more precisely that a power resided in man by which he could magnetically affect others, and thereby cure the sick who were most influenced by it. He published a work on the effects of magnetism on the human frame.

About the same time Balthazar Gracian, a Spaniard, boldly proclaimed his views. "The magnet," he said, "attracts iron; iron is found everywhere; everything, therefore, is under the influence of magnetism.... It is the same agent which gives rise to sympathy, antipathy, and the passions." Baptista Porta (1543-1615), one of the originators of the weapon-salve, had also great faith in the magnet. So effective was his work on the imaginations of his patients that he was considered a magician and prohibited from practising by the court of Rome. Sebastian Wirdig, professor of medicine at the University of Rostock, in Mecklenburg, wrote a treatise on "The New Medicine of the Spirits" which he presented to the Royal Society of London in 1673. He maintained that a magnetic influence took place, not only between the celestial and terrestrial bodies, but between all living things. The whole world was under the influence of magnetism: life was preserved by magnetism, death was the consequence of magnetism.

Maxwell (1581-1640) propagated somewhat the same doctrine. He was a firm believer in sympathetic cures, and assumed a vital spirit of the universe which related all bodies. It was probably from this that Mesmer got his idea of what he called the universal fluid. It would seem, however, that Maxwell was aware of the great influence of imagination and suggestion. He said: "If you wish to work prodigies, abstract from the materiality of beings—increase the sum of spirituality in bodies—rouse the spirit from its slumbers. Unless you do one or other of these things—unless you can bind the idea, you can never perform anything good or great." About the same time, in Italy, Santanelli propagated the theory of a universal fluid. Everything material possessed a radiating atmosphere which operated magnetically. He also recognized, however, the great influence of the imagination.



About the year 1771, Father Hell, a Jesuit, and professor of astronomy at the University of Vienna, became famous through his magnetic cures, and invented steel plates of a peculiar form which he applied to the naked body as a cure for several diseases. In 1774 he communicated his system to Mesmer, the man who, more than any one else, drew the world's attention to the investigation of mental healing. Various estimates have been made of Mesmer's character and he frequently has been condemned. He was fond of display, but it is doubtful if he was more avaricious than most persons who lived before and have lived since. He was evidently honest in his scientific investigations and opinions, and this is our main concern.

Friederich Antony Mesmer (1733-1815) was born at Mersbury, in Swabia, and studied medicine at the University of Vienna. He read freely the books written by the authors already mentioned, and accepted much of their teaching. His originality consisted principally in applying to the sick this universal principle, by means of contact and passes, while his predecessors infused the vital spirit through the use of talismans and of magic boxes. He took his medical degree in 1766 and chose as the subject of his inaugural dissertation "The Influence of the Planets in the Cure of Diseases." In this dissertation he maintained "that the sun, moon, and fixed stars mutually affect each other in their orbits; that they cause and direct in our earth a flux and reflux not only in the sea, but in the atmosphere, and affect in a similar manner all organized bodies through the medium of a subtle and mobile fluid, which pervades the universe, and associates all things together in mutual intercourse and harmony." This influence, he said, was particularly exercised on the nervous system, and produced two states, which he called intension and remission, which seemed to him to account for the different periodical revolutions observable in several maladies.

Eight years later he met Father Hell, and after trying some experiments with his metallic plates was astonished at his success. He continued working with Hell for some time, but they finally quarrelled, and shortly afterward he stumbled upon his theory of animal magnetism. After this he no longer used the magnet in healing. The Academy of Science at Berlin examined his claims, but their report was far from favorable or flattering. Nevertheless, writing to a friend from Vienna, he said: "I have observed that the magnetic is almost the same as the electric fluid, and that it may be propagated in the same manner, by means of intermediate bodies. Steel is not the only substance adapted to this purpose. I have rendered paper, bread, wool, silk, stones, leather, glass, wood, men, and dogs—in short, every thing I touched—magnetic to such a degree, that these substances produced the same effects as the loadstone on diseased persons. I have charged jars with magnetic matter in the same way as is done with electricity." About this time he was nominated a member of the Academy of Bavaria.

Leaving Vienna and travelling through Swabia and Switzerland, he met Gassner and witnessed some of his cures. Mesmer claimed that they were performed by his newly discovered magnetism. He arrived in Paris in 1778 and found this city more receptive to his arts. He at first established himself in an humble quarter of the city and began to expound his theory. The following year he published a paper in which he summed up his claims in twenty-seven assertions to which he rigidly held through his life. His doctrines were well received, and acquired an impetus at the beginning by the conversion of one of the leading physicians of the faculty of medicine, Deslon, the Comte d'Artois' first physician.