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a mariner, got him in August, 1746, a passage in a ship to the 
Isle of Rée, and from thence he made his way to Paris, and then 
to Avignon, where he was touched in November by the “ eldest 
descendant of a race of Kings,” but one who had not been either 
crowned or anointed ; the desired result however followed, the 
sores healed, and Lovell so gained in strength that he returned 
in January in perfect health. Some including the surgeon who 
had “tried in vain for three years” to cure him, considered the 
case, if not miraculous, as one of the most wonderful events that 
had ever happened. ° 
But with others all this became a pious fraud, a fallacy, an idle 
Jacobite tale, to support the old threadbare notion of a divine 
hereditary right, long exploded by men of sense. It was clear 
enough that change of air and a long course of varied exercise, 
with a change of diet from the coarse scorbutic food to which he 
would be accustomed, to the light vegetable diet of France, with 
the voyage to and fro, had produced the effect. This lasted but 
a short time, the sores broke out afresh, and Lovell returned to 
France hoping again for aid, but died miserably on the road. 
As one writer puts this case, he went to a “certain nameless, 
hereditary, unanointed Prince, succeeded, was healed, returned 
home, relapsed and died. Q.E.D.” 
But although the Kings had discontinued the now discredited 
custom, belief in its virtue was not likely to be as suddenly 
wholly discarded. As late as 1814 there was a certain Thomas 
Draper, who assuming the medical prefix of Doctor, became 
known as Doctor Touchem, and by his cures got a great repute 
about Bridgwater, where he resided. . He was tried twice at 
Quarter Sessions for using subtle craft to deceive. At the 
second trial, October 17th, 1814, a numerous assemblage of all 
ages attended to prove their restoration to health, and this 
without either medicine, fee or reward; and on getting an 
acquittal, he left the court “amidst the shouts and blessings of 
an approving multitude.” Two single sheets printed at the 
